Daily
Devotional

Several years ago, I visited my son and his family in South Africa. We were spending a leisurely evening together; my grandsons were playing on the floor and I was reading the newspaper. Suddenly, the younger boy decided that he would have some fun with me, so he began to tap my newspaper relentlessly while I was trying to read. I told him he was creating an issue, and he asked me what an “issue” was, so I told him that tapping my paper was an issue!

Later that evening, after the boys were put to bed, we heard the younger boy say to his brother, “Let’s create an issue.” They had learned a new word! We laughed at the boys’ understanding of an issue as being anything bothersome, and we were thankful that they did not proceed to create any serious issues!  

In our focus verse, Paul the Apostle posed a question to King Agrippa. Knowing that the prophets of old had exactly predicted the birth of Christ, Paul asked the king if he would yet deny the validity of the Gospel. He asked that question because he believed that the Gospel was an “issue” that demanded a response. Although this issue may have seemed bothersome to the king and others who were confronted with it, Paul knew that once answered, it would bring everlasting life.

God’s Word always creates an issue with people because it is the truth. Like my grandson tapping on my newspaper, the Spirit of God taps on hearts. The truth in His call tugs at the conscience until it cannot be unnoticed, although it can be ignored. If ignored long enough, as seems to have been the case with King Agrippa, the tugging eventually goes away, to the detriment of the recipient.

It is imperative that we receive a love for the truth. If we do not have a love for the truth, it becomes possible for us to believe a lie and be damned (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12). Today, if God’s Word is taking issue with our hearts over some matter, we need to listen to that tugging. Spiritual questions are not cleared up by intellectual exercises, but by obedience to God’s Word.