November 28 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Devotional

When they asked Jesus, in the night in which he was betrayed, if he was really the Christ, he answered: "You have said so. From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven" (Matt. 26:64).

His Jewish judges knew very well what Jesus was talking about. The Son of Man on the clouds of heaven was the one who received the everlasting kingdom out of the hands of God, according to Daniel 7:14.

But they did not believe that Jesus was the one through whom God would send the sickle into the human grain fields of this world. He did not look like the person of whom Daniel had spoken. He did not even look like the One of whom John the Baptist had said, "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Matt. 3:12).

But that was exactly the mystery of the kingdom and the mystery of the King. Jesus said that first the Word of the kingdom had to be sown before the harvest of the world could be reaped. First a farmer went out to sow. First Jesus himself fell like a seed into the ground, in order to bring forth a harvest. By the grace and wisdom of God, Jesus' first coming inaugurated sowing time, but that did not mean that the harvest time wasn't coming. It ensured that there would be a harvest.

If the gospel is still being preached and the good news is still being broadcast while you are reading this, it is still sowing time. The weeds and the wheat are still growing together until it pleases God to harvest the wheat and burn the weeds.

We had better make sure that we are doing the right thing with the Word of the kingdom that is now being sown, for after sowing time comes harvest time.

You can stake your life on this: the One who now wears the golden crown is anxious to harvest what he has sown and to remove the weeds from the world.

REFLECTIONS

How does knowing about the inevitability of the coming judgment and "harvest" affect the way you live?

Andrew Kuyvenhoven's Daylight, a modern devotional classic, was originally published by Paideia Press in 1977. This updated edition is copyright 2009 by Faith Alive Christian Resources. You can order a copy of this revised version of the book directly from the publisher.

A man of many accomplishments, Andrew Kuyvenhoven is probably best known for his contributions to Today (formerly The Family Altar), a widely-used monthly devotional booklet associated with the Back to God Hour. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations for this updated edition of Daylight are from the Holy Bible: Today's New International Version copyright 2001, 2005 by the International Bible Society.