Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Monday, July 15, 2019

"For the truth about God is known to them [all mankind] instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God."¹

Dorothy Bull asks:

    Why does the earthworm always look clean,
    When you consider where it has been?
    How does the butterfly with new-formed wings
    Know how to fly with such cumbersome things?
    Where does the spider keep all its thread?
    Who put the web-pattern into its head?
    How does the ant carry food twice its size,
    And store for the winter?
    Who made it so wise?²

We can say it was chance or we can say it was God. No matter what we say, belief in God is instinctive. Every person is born with an innate sense of a divine, all-powerful Supreme Being. To act on this belief, however, is a choice. We basically believe what we want and choose to believe.

Sometimes doubts are genuine and cause us to think, and that is good. But sometimes they are a smoke screen to hide a moral problem ... we fear that if we come to Christ, believe in him and accept him as our Savior, we will have to give up some things we know instinctively are wrong.

Thus it is choice, not chance, that determines our beliefs and therefore our eternal destiny. As God's Word says, "Choose today whom you will serve."³

Indeed, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world."⁴

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, if You have planted in the heart of all mankind a sense of Your divine being, please open the eyes of my understanding so that I will see and know that You are indeed the God of all creation. In so doing please give me the courage this day to truly serve and live for You. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer, gratefully in Jesus's name. Amen."

1. Romans 1:19-20 (NLT).
2. Dorothy Bull, Cited in Encounter magazine,
    Sep/Oct, 2001.
3. Joshua 24:15 (NLT).
4. Psalm 19:1-4 (NIV).

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