January 11: Matthew 10:40-42
Key Verse: Matthew 10:40
Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.
Devotion:
One of the things we often forget is someone who is close to God will always tell God when good or bad things happen to them. So no matter how far you think you are away from God, He always gets to hear what you are up to. As Jesus says in these verses, if you do anything as little as giving a cup of water to one who is close to God, He will make sure you get your reward for doing something for them.
We don’t know how close other people are to God if they are strangers to us; we can have a good guess if we observe them long enough, but not just by looking at them! So what Jesus is also saying is we have to treat each person we meet as if they are in communion with God so we always treat them properly.
So many situation in our modern world suggest we should be treating many people with the same mannerisms as they treat us and others. This causes a bit of a snowball effect because once someone starts treating others badly, more people join in to treat them and others affected badly too; and so it continues until everyone is getting hurt by others!
God wants us to try and turn this on its head by treating people right. If we can break the chain of treating people badly, we stop the spread of evil and invite righteousness into their lives. As disciples of God we should be willing to treat others well so they can be encouraged to do the same.
Points to Ponder:
How many people did you treat badly today?
How many people did you treat well today?