Christian Devotional – December 29, 2019

Search carefully. Herod brought the magi to him secretly to find out the age of the star, but he told them his motivation was one of worship. Read Matthew 2:7-8.

Then Herod secretly called the magi and determined from them the exact time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the Child; and when you have found Him, report to me, so that I too may come and worship Him.”
Matthew 2:7‭-‬8 NASB
https://bible.com/bible/100/mat.2.7-8.NASB

Herod felt the need to explain himself to the magi, which was odd. He was the king, and could have commanded them to tell him anything he wanted to. However, he decided to lie to them about his motivation behind why he was asking them to go and search out the child. He told the magi that he wanted to go and to worship this child, but he had no such intention.

Do we lie to others about the reasons we do things? Are our intentions not as pure as we lead others to believe they are? As we read through this account of understanding and searching out Jesus, we see 2 different types of people. We have the magi, who desperately desired to find the savior for themselves so that they could worship him. Second, we have Herod who didn’t feel he needed a savior and wanted to find him to destroy him. We may be searching for Jesus in our life, but why? Are we searching so that we can lay our life down before him and worship him? Or, are we searching so that we can eliminate him from our life entirely?