Wed.’s Devo. - God’s Mystery

Read: Ezra 3:1-4:24, 1 Co. 2:6-3:4, Ps. 28:1-9, Pr. 20:24-25 The priests built the brazen altar so they could celebrate the feast of Tabernacles in it’s month. They had laid the foundation for the temple so everyone could see what the floor plan would be. Those that had remembered Solomon’s temple cried because this was nothing to be compared to it. Those that had not seen it shouted for joy that they were going to have a temple. It is recorded that their sound could be heard from a far off. I am tempted sometimes to be like the older people who could only cry because they couldn’t reproduce the past. When God does a new thing it doesn’t always look as grandeur as we remember it being. How many times have I found an old outfit that I remembered one way and when I saw it it wasn’t near as great as I remembered it being. This temple might not have had the pomp of Solomon’s but it would have the same spirit. God is doing a new thing again and we can’t be those who cry because it wasn’t like the past. We have to embrace the new plan. It will end up better than the past plan. Of course, nothing God does is not met without God’s adversary, Satan. Ezra’s nemesis was Zerubbabel. His name means “descended of Babylon”, and Babylon means confusion. That was his plan: to confuse the workers. He finally sent letters to the new king telling him to look in his history books and see how the Jews were always fighting and causing trouble. So Artaxerxes did some reading and had their work stopped. In 1 Co. Paul talks about a mystery that no one in the past has understood until now. That mystery is the Holy Spirit. He can tell us God’s secrets. He is the one who gives us the mind of Christ. Lord, thank you for what you are doing new on the earth. May we have your mind today.