Daily
Devotional

My wife and I were recently dining at a restaurant that gives fortune cookies with the bill. As we opened our fortune cookies, both of us found that there was nothing inside! Someone else might have deciphered meaning from our lack of fortunes, but we both just laughed and passed it off as a light thing. As Christians, we have never believed in the fortunes found in cookies, though they sometimes make for interesting conversation!

Our focus verses are a portion of the instructions God gave to the Children of Israel as they were entering the land of the Canaanites. All of the types of people listed in those verses—the enchanters, witches, charmers, etc.—describe different ones who tried to communicate with spirits or predict the future, usually through sorcery or magic. The Children of Israel were forbidden from taking up such practices because they were not of God.

God already had a plan in place for communicating with His people. He said He would “raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee . . . unto him ye shall hearken” (Deuteronomy 18:15). For centuries, God sent prophets to speak to the Children of Israel, and then He raised up a Prophet who would speak to all mankind. As God’s anointed Prophet, Jesus uttered the Word of God as the standard for our lives. Today, we can read His Word to find His will, and listen for His Spirit to direct us.  

If a person finds it necessary to read his horoscope before facing the day, he is settling for less than divine guidance. And to put our trust in something less than God’s divine guidance is to court disaster. We do not need a loudspeaker to hear the still, small voice of God; we simply need to be still and know that He is God. He is even now speaking to people who care to listen.