April 27: Acts 5:17-26
Key Verse: Acts 5:23
‘We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside.’
Devotion:
I wonder, have you experienced anything out of the ordinary happen to you while God was in charge? Too much of our lives are spent trying to make sense of things and defining what can and cannot happen according to the laws of science. Well, there is a whole lot more to life than just science and there are things which will happen where we will not be able to explain it away with science, history, common sense or whatever!
The high priest and his associates who were all members of the Sadducees were filled with jealousy because the Apostles were taking so much attention away from them; focus was being placed directly on Jesus, the man whom they had condemned to death, the same man who God brought back to life so we would have a way of paying for our sin debt once and for all!
God was with the apostles and protected them no matter what was happening at this stage because He knew they had a task to fulfil. God knew when they were going to be taken and He knew it would be the same ruling party who would condemn the apostles to death just as they did to Jesus. But before then, they had a job to do – to open the eyes of the people so they could see the truth despite the corruption of the leaders!
God took them directly out of jail without them having to break out, open the doors or even creep past the guards. The captain of the temple guards could not explain it, but I’m sure he got to know about it after people started telling others about how God freed the apostles.
Points to Ponder:
Do you cling to what you know?
Will you trust God to do something impossible for you?
April 26: 2 Timothy 2:8-13
Key Verse: 2 Timothy 2:11
Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him;
Devotion:
When we see how much the disciples went through, we begin to see why Jesus taught them about suffering. People are bad! People do things wrong! Christ was the one who stood up to tell people the truth. He knew it was going to upset a lot of people because He could see they had been following worldly ways for a while now instead of continuing to listen to and be guided by God.
It only takes one person to turn away and many may follow them because it looks like they are doing the right thing. But when someone turn and gets into trouble because they have turned, we don’t like to follow, believe or trust them because they had got themselves in deep water! We follow human emotions and human ways just because it looks right – after all it must be if someone else is doing it, right?
Jesus had to go through so much suffering we cannot grasp how He was able to continue going on! Some people are chained up by their situations – they cannot let go and they cannot do what is right without getting into trouble themselves… so they back off and allow bad things to happen. When we see bad things happen, we shy away unless we can see they are reaping the benefits in major ways!
Unfortunately we do like to follow the path of least resistance and least punishment. We like to have an easy life, because we can see how that benefits us. We don’t normally get to see how bad things benefit us because we don’t stick around long enough to see the benefits which come at the end! Christ did!
Points to Ponder:
We must be willing to follow Jesus!
Are you willing to put up with the consequences of following Christ?
April 25: Acts 15:35-41
Key Verse: Acts 15:39
They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus
Devotion:
Have you ever wondered why churches split up or people leave one church to go to another? It is all part of being human and having our own faults. We try to hide our feeling at times because we are afraid we may hurt someone or we may be hurt ourselves. We try to go along with what other people are saying even though we think it is wrong. We make mistakes; not just us, but all of us, everyone, church leaders included!
We see many references to how the chief priests and religious leaders at the time went against what the disciples were learning as the truth. We may even wonder why they could not see the truth. If we place ourselves in their shoes, then maybe we would not see how the disciples were trying to do what is right – we may only see them as troublemakers.
It takes context and more knowledge than we have to see what really happens – too much of the time what we see as being right and wrong are jaded by our surroundings and by the people around us. Because we are all human and because we all make mistakes, we should be more aware of others and more aware of what can go wrong, both in our lives and in others lives!
Paul and Barnabas had a major disagreement because they had their own ideas about what should be done. Barnabas wanted to give Mark another chance to prove himself. Paul was in no mood to let that happen. Something so little caused a major argument which ended up in them parting company! This is life and we have to learn how to cope with circumstances like this so we can move forward. What we need to do is to put aside our own feeling and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us… and that is hard!
Points to Ponder:
Do you have strong ideas about what should happen in your church?
Are you willing to allow the Holy Spirit to guide you even when others will not?
April 24: Acts 5:27-32
Key Verse: Acts 5:30
The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead – whom you killed by hanging him on a cross.
Devotion:
What do you do after you have been punished for doing something? Do you stop doing whatever it was, or do you carry on doing it? We seem to face this in our lives a lot; maybe because some rules don’t seem to make sense to us, or maybe the rules are unjust! If we lived under the rule of a tyrant we may well think many of the rules are unjust but we would probably be scared to break them because of the punishment we would face if we did.
The apostles continue to preach about Jesus and His death and resurrection. The Sanhedrin council called them in to question them and to warn them once again about preaching about Jesus. They were now at the stage where they were taking it personally and saw this preaching as a direct assault on their names! No longer were they thinking about who Jesus was or whether He was the Messiah – they were focused on their own tarnished reputations!
The apostles words were harsh and hard hitting. We must obey God and not human beings… something we should be thinking of in our lives, but something we find hard to do because of the peer pressure! Then they reminded the Sanhedrin it was their words and actions which directly resulted in Jesus being crucified and being killed on the cross. They also reminded the Sanhedrin it was God who raised Jesus from the dead – the same God they were teaching about and the same God who they wanted people to obey (as long as it went along with their rules too!)
We need to tell people the truth. We have just celebrated Easter and now we should be reminding others and ourselves what Easter meant. This was the time Jesus stepped forward and took on the sin of the whole world, gave His life in our stead and was raised from the dead to defeat Satan and evil once and for all.
Points to Ponder:
Do you remind people what Easter really is about?
Are you going to be brave and teach people the truth?