MAY 23 READING…ACTS 12
Have you ever considered that your faith in Jesus might cost you more than a little ridicule from those who don’t believe? This, so far, has been the extent of the level of “persecution” we have faced as followers of Jesus in our country. In our reading today, we see Satan using Herod to do his dirty work, as Herod has James, the brother of John, killed. He saw that this pleased the ungodly people, and he had Peter seized and put into prison, planning also to have him killed. The Lord had other plans. The Lord sent his angel to open the prison door and Peter was freed in the middle of the night. Imagine, God moving in such a miraculous way as to have the locked doors swing wide open and release His Apostle…for the Lord had a plan for Peter. And God was greater that Herod. As a matter of fact, it was not long after this that Herod received praise from the people as being as a god. Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him for taking the glory that belongs to God alone. He was eaten by worms from the inside, and fell down dead. When the world wants to persecute you, know that our God is greater. He was great in James’ martyrdom, He was great in Peter being freed, and He was great in destroying the blasphemer Herod. We need to trust the Lord to be great in our lives…trusting Him for whatever we face, and whatever the results are.
An interesting occurrence also was recorded for us in this chapter. We are told the church began to pray when they heard that Peter had been thrown into prison. While they were praying the Lord answer, and as I shared earlier, sent and angel to set Peter free. Peter goes to the home where the believers were praying, and knocked on the door. A girl named Rhoda was so overwhelmed when she heard Peter’s voice she ran to tell the others who were praying without even letting Peter in. The response of those praying was to say that Rhoda was beside herself, and they did not initially believe. Peter continued to knock and finally they let him in…they were astonished. Now, I hope we can learn from this…we need to pray with real expectation. When we pray we need to pray expecting God to answer, because He promised He would. He did not promise He would always give us what we asked for, but He did promise He would answer our prayers. So, let’s practice praying knowing that God will answer our prayers…and let’s be thankful that God always answers our prayers in the best way.
Please share your thoughts from today’s reading.
TOMORROW’S READING…ACTS 13