Acts 12
Rebecca Lightfoot
N Acts12,the grandson of Herod the Great that desperately tried to kill baby Jesus by slaying all the baby boys n Bethlehem(Matthew2:16),& nephew of the Herod that beheaded John the Baptist...has had more than ample reasons to at the very least seek to know more about Jesus...more about THE TRUTH!But this Herod has the same life perspective that his elder relatives had!That being one of overwhelming self importance and selfishness/greed/arrogance which makes his mind & heart so hard that instead of acknowledging the miraculousness of things he has heard about and even witnessed himself,he rejects ETERNAL TRUTHS to the point of even killing the guards that told him about the angel of the Lord coming for Peter...freeing him from being chained to 2 guards,passing through 2 more sets of guards,& then opening the jail gates for Peter to go free!Instead of allowing all that Herod has heard and seen about Jesus,and those that TRUST Jesus,throughout his life cause him to seek to know more about this Jesus...Herod turns away from TRUTH and allows his mind&heart to become so very hardened that he is absolutely “lost” by his own selfish&egotistical“designs”&ideas.Herod has become so “lost” n his selfish&egotistical “designs”&ideas,that he becomes his own god of sorts.We all do this whenever we do not seek TRUTH,but instead settle for the way our personal “designs”&ideas define a personal version of truth.N this Herod’s life it led his demise n Acts12:21-23 as his selfishness&egotism kept him from acknowledging The Lord as God(“On The appointed day Herod,sat on his throne & delivered a public address to the people.They shouted,’This is the voice of a god,not of a man.’Immediately,because Herod did not give praise to God,an angel of the Lord struck him down and he was eaten by worms.”).Whenever we turn away from TRUTH,for any reason,we run the same risk that all 3 Herod’s succumbed to n their lives.That of having our mind&heart so hardened that we become “lost” in our own personal “designs”&ideas...just as they did.Dear Lord,I know that I have a lot of my own personal “designs”&ideas about You and about life that have me “lost” n ways that I need Your HELP with!I pray for Your Spirit & Your Word to lead me&guide me and empower me away from my personal “designs”&ideas,& into the life of the FREEDOM&JOY that only Your TRUTHS enable.