Daily Devotional
How God Reacts to Rebellion

February 18, 2024

Ponder This

God created Adam and Eve, and He gave them everything they needed. No one can say He didn’t raise them right. No one can say He didn’t love them. No one can say He didn’t spend time with them. No one can say He did not carefully teach them. And He warned them that their future depended on their choices, yet they did wrong. By their own choices and free will, they rebelled against their loving Father.

You can be a good parent and lose a child. But reading the Bible you’re going to see God is in the same place you are. God is agonizingly watching your children hurt themselves and hurt others, and yet God refuses to step in and storm their control center and make them machines. He won’t do it. I’m going to tell you something else: He won’t do it with you either. God is looking down from Heaven right now at some grown rebellious children, and He’s stretching out His hands in love and saying, “Come to Me.”

• Who do you know who has rebelled against God? How does that make you feel? How does it feel to know God empathizes with the hurt you experience in these moments?
• Who in your life is far from God? How can you extend love to that person?

Practice This

Take a step toward loving someone who’s far from God.