Saturday 13 May 2023

May 13: Acts 15:36-41

Key Verse: Acts 15:39
They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus

Devotion:
Up until this point Paul and Barnabas had been a duo doing many things together and taking the gospel to as many people as they could. Paul now wanted to go back to all the places they had preached and make sure they were all doing well and keeping close to God. Barnabas wanted John to come along as well but Paul disagreed; so much so they must have had a very big argument and fell out with each other! Welcome to the world of human emotions and fickleness!

The apostles had done so much to try and quell arguments, spread the truth and teach people to live with Christ in their hearts, but they still succumbed to personal feelings. It is something we will always have to face because we are human and we have feelings. Should they have done anything different? Well, that is very subjective and we only hear one side of the story from the writer here…

What can we take away from this? Despite all the good we do in life, we are always going to get something wrong some of the time. That means we have to be able to survive from our mistakes and move on with Christ still in our hearts and not take hatred or jealousy with us instead. God has given us emotions and souls so we can make choices in our lives, choices which affect others as well as ourselves.

And that, I think, should be the point we look at here. Not to put blame onto one party or another but to rather think about the choices we make and how they will affect the people around us. Being a disciple of God means we are always on show and people are always going to react based on our actions!

Points to Ponder:
Do you know what affect you have on the people around you?

Will you stop to think before embarking on your next change?