Wednesday – History

Reading – Ezra 1-2

Highlight Verse:

““This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has appointed me to build him a Temple at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.”
‭‭Ezra‬ ‭1‬:‭2‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Sometimes God uses unexpected people to get His message across.

In the American church community, we tend to be quick to dismiss someone because they don’t meet our expectations of what a Christian leader should be.

Cancel culture is alive and well in the church community.

But sometimes God chooses to use someone who does not meet our standards to reach people.

King Cyrus was not a Jewish believer. He supported the beliefs of the people in each region that he conquered, therefore he supported the Hebrew religion.

As far as I can tell, God was just fine with that. Perhaps He even inspired King Cyrus to restore the temple.

The bottom line is, despite the fact that Cyrus was clearly not a believer, God was able to use him to bring people to himself.

We could learn from that by not refusing to listen when people who don’t believe do things that bring people to God.

During the triumphal entry, Jesus said that if the people would not worship Him, even the rocks would cry out in praise.

I think God would use unbelievers to bring praise to Him before He would make the rocks do it.

Have you ever seen God use an unbeliever to bring about great change?
How can you tell when an unbeliever is doing God’s will?