{"id":7675,"date":"2021-08-06T17:58:25","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T22:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/?p=7675"},"modified":"2021-08-06T17:58:25","modified_gmt":"2021-08-06T22:58:25","slug":"devotional-on-micah-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-micah-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Micah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 2048px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-QmBw3Zw82KE\/YQw-ZwYMQ-I\/AAAAAAABK-c\/PE4SHfpVj80CH7Tfj6-Hmqlzez16Q5-1gCPcBGAsYHg\/s2048\/image-003.jpg\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1530\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2013 &#8211; North Carolina<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nBack to the future<br \/>\nMicah 5: Bethlehem&#8230;from you will come the leader who will shepherd-rule Israel.<br \/>\nIt becomes quite clear to anyone who reads through the Old Testament prophets that speaking of future events is not their job one.  Most often they focus on current events, calling people to a genuine walk with God and to living just lives as his people.  However, once in a while, they\u2019re given pretty specific insights into God\u2019s plans.  You might say that they get a glimpse of the future \u2013 not as though the future is out there to be seen if you just know how, but that the Lord shares some specific part of his intentions.  As Micah describes God\u2019s plan to remake his people he gets a glimpse of the coming shepherd-leader and realizes he will come from David\u2019s home town of Bethlehem.  In the years to come, that little revelation will grow large in the minds of God\u2019s people.  And well it should, this is something concrete, a test to be applied in identifying the Messiah.  Meanwhile, Micah doesn\u2019t dwell on this juicy bit of revelation and moves on to describe the ministry of the One sent from God.  Clearly, there\u2019s a lot to think about as I read things like this but today I\u2019m simply reminded that God doesn\u2019t do stuff by accident.  In this passage, we find the Lord planning 700 years into the future where he intends to do something connected to an event just as distant in the past.  That is, he plans for the Messiah to be born in the town where the greatest King of Israel\u2019s history was born.  The Lord not only has specific plans for the future but he also has the heart of a poet in those plans.<br \/>\nTake Away: The Lord doesn\u2019t do things by accident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back to the future Micah 5: Bethlehem&#8230;from you will come the leader who will shepherd-rule Israel. It becomes quite clear to anyone who reads through the Old Testament prophets that speaking of future events is not their job one. Most often they focus on current events, calling people to a genuine walk with God and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1519,6,7],"tags":[142,381,651,717,871],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7675"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7675"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15449,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7675\/revisions\/15449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}