Read Acts 16

But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns
to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.
(Acts 16:25)

Thoughts… Bible teacher and author Warren Wiersby wrote about his recovery from a serious automobile accident. In the hospital, he began receiving letters of encouragement from a man he’d never met, and his own recovery was greatly aided by this man’s inspiration.

Later, when he met the man, he was shocked to find a blind, severely diabetic, amputee who lived with and cared for his elderly mother. And the man shared Christ in his spare time as a motivational speaker! He turned his disadvantages to his advantage, and his courage, determination and joy greatly inspired others to do the same!

I’ll bet you’ve got some disadvantages of your own. Perhaps not as dramatic as this man’s physical challenges, or dramatic as Paul’s imprisonment here in the city of Philippi. Or maybe they are.

Here is my question for you: Is there any reason why you can’t allow your difficulties to be used as opportunities to show forth the glory of God. People are watching you, after all. Just as the other prisoners were listening to Paul and Silas sing hymns to God in spite of the beating they had just received, people are watching how you go through your challenges as well. And the truth is, you have no greater opportunity to make an impact on others than by allowing your suffering to be redemptive.

If you are interested in redeeming your sufferings, as weird as that may sound, here is how you can you do that:

Begin by identifying the negatives in your life right now. Write them down on a piece of paper—things like physical limitations, financial challenges, a hard marriage, singleness, hostile work environment.

Next, thank God for each one of them. Famed Scottish theologian and hymn-writer George Matheson once prayed,

“My God, I have never thanked Thee for my thorns. I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but not once for my thorns. I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross: but I have never thought of my cross as itself a present glory. Teach me the glory of my cross: teach me the value of my thorn. Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain. Show me that my tears have made my rainbow.”

By the way, Matheson went totally blind when he was 20. If a young man who lost his sight in the prime of his life can thank God for it, you can practice gratitude for the stuff you are going through.

Finally, determine to take advantage of your disadvantages to talk about Jesus this week. Here’s the thing: Whatever negative circumstances you are facing, this may be your finest hour.

Back in World War II, Adolph Hitler’s army had demolished the European allies, and only the British military remained to stand against the advancing Nazi’s. But Britain was on the brink of defeat as well, when Winston Churchill, the great Prime Minister stood before Parliament and declared, “Let us brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire…last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”

My prayer is that whatever your challenges, the people who are watching you will be able to say, “this was your finest hour.”

Prayer… Lord, help me to see each and every difficulty as an open door to bring glory and praise to you.

One More Thing… “God made [Joseph] fruitful in the very things that afflicted him. In the land of your affliction, in your battle, is the place where God will make you fruitful. Consider, even now, the area of greatest affliction in your life. In that area, God will make you fruitful in such a way that your heart will be fully satisfied, and God’s heart fully glorified. God has not promised to keep us from valleys and sufferings, but to make us fruitful in them.” — Francis Frangipane

Read Acts 15

Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this
matter. And when there had been much dispute, Peter
rose up and said to them: “…we should not trouble
those from among the Gentiles who are turning to
God, but that we write to them to abstain from
things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality,
from things strangled, and from blood.”
(Acts 15:6-7,20)

Thoughts… This was the church’s first big doctrinal brouhaha. At issue was whether Gentile converts to Christ should observe Jewish laws and customs, such as circumcision, to be saved. Emotions were on edge, sides were chosen, and this issue was ready to blow the young church apart.

So, wisely, the matter was taken to the church leaders in Jerusalem to be settled. Because there were such strong feelings about this matter on both sides of the argument, whatever decision the apostolic leaders made was likely to cause unhappiness with a whole faction of church folk.

After much debate, the leaders issued their decision, reaffirming that salvation was by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, and not by works of righteousness, including works done through Jewish laws and customs. All they ask of the Gentile converts was that where the letter of Jewish law called for personal holiness, they honor the spirit of the law so that the same kind of God-honoring holiness would result. (See verses 20-21)

Now apart from the historic decision produced at this first Jerusalem Council, there is something highly instructive we learn here about effective and God-pleasing church leadership. From Peter, James and the others, we can clearly see that the call of God upon church leaders is not to keep us happy; it is to make us holy.

There is not a one of us who doesn’t hope that we get leaders who please us and do what we want. That is not a bad thing so long as it takes a back seat to the permission we give them to produce in us a life of holiness, obedience and service unto the Lord. Happiness and holiness are not mutually exclusive, yet most of the time, true and lasting happiness only results out of and after the forging of holiness in our lives. Happiness that comes before holiness is often short-lived, and many times it becomes a barrier to growth in holiness.

What expectations do you have of your spiritual leader? Think about it. Do you put the highest premium on his or her contribution to your personal happiness? Do you want them to make you more comfortable in your faith journey? Are you hoping they lead in a way that satisfies your preferences?

Or, above all else, have you given them permission—have you demanded—that they lead in such a way that holiness in forged in your life?

I think we all know the better use of a spiritual leader.

Prayer… Lord, there is only one thing I want more than to be happy, and that is to be pure. Bring spiritual influencers into my life that will challenge me to growth in personal holiness.

One More Thing… “We need a baptism of clear seeing. We desperately need seers who can see through the mist—Christian leaders with prophetic vision. Unless they come soon it will be too late for this generation. And if they do come we will no doubt crucify a few of them in the name of our worldly orthodoxy.” —A.W. Tozer

Read Acts 14

Paul and Barnabas strengthened the souls of the disciples,
exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying,
“We must through many tribulations
enter the kingdom of God.”
(Acts 14:22)

Thoughts… Now there’s a great recruitment campaign for Christianity, wouldn’t you say! “Just accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, and after you go through a bunch of trials and tribulations, then you can enter the kingdom of God!”

You sure don’t hear that dose of reality theology preached much these days—unfortunately. Far too often, spiritual leaders feel like they have to sugarcoat the gospel to get people’s buy-in. Converts are led to believe that if they just give their lives to Jesus, he will most certainly make them healthy, wealthy and wise. In modern day Christianity, following Christ is equated with happiness, success and comfort. It is now quite common for America’s most popular pulpiteers to spout a message of easy believism while their high profile churches traffic in what amounts to nothing more than cheap grace.

Make no mistake—nothing is further from the theology of the New Testament. The Gospel makes no such claims to an easy Christianity. In fact, what the Bible does claim is that following Christ will be costly, painful, and difficult. However, it also promises that whatever pain our faith leads us into now will be miniscule by comparison to the deep satisfaction of intimately walking with Jesus, the enduring significance of being used by God, and the incomparable satisfaction of possessing eternal life.

In no way is Paul trying to minimize suffering. He is not saying that pain is no big deal. He is not suggesting that when we go through a trial, we should just buck up and get over it. Paul himself understood like few others the high cost of what it meant to suffer for Christ. Don’t forget that just a few verses prior to this one, we read that Paul was stoned and left for dead for ministering in Christ’s name. He is speaking here with the authority of one who has humbly suffered for Jesus.

What Paul and Barnabas, as well as Peter, John and the other New Testament writers want us to know is that when we accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, we become strangers and pilgrims in a world hostile to the kingdom values by which we live. That hostility will at times produce great tribulation for us. But when such tribulation strikes, we must allow it to remind us that a better kingdom awaits. As Paul would later say to the Christians in Corinth,

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (II Corinthians 4:17-19)

So get ready. Some tribulation is coming—if it hasn’t already. But that tribulation is just a holy reminder that far better things are ahead.

Prayer… Lord, toughen me for the battles I must fight before I enter your eternal kingdom. Let them remind me that I was made for a better world.

One More Thing… “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” —C.S. Lewis

Read Acts 13

Then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit,
Looked intently at Elymas and said, “O full of all deceit and
all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness,
will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord?
And now, indeed, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and
you shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a time.”
And immediately a dark mist fell on Elymas,
and he went around seeking someone
to lead him by the hand.
(Acts 13:9-11)

Thoughts… Up to this moment, Paul, who was called Saul, had been in the background. He was ministering in the church at Antioch, but was basically the ministry associate to the better-known Barnabas. Saul was playing second fiddle in this orchestra.

All that changed on this ministry trip to Cyprus when an influential sorcerer named Elymas harassed Barnabas and Saul. Elymas’ demonically inspired powers held sway over the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus, to whom Barnabas and Saul were witnessing. This up and coming official was on the verge of accepting Christ as his Savior, but Elymas was making it very difficult.

Saul, discerning that this sorcerer was being used as a tool of Satan, turned on Elymas with both barrels and gave him the unedited version of a Holy Spirit smackdown. And as they say, the rest is history: Elymas was immediately struck with blindness, Sergius Paulus came to faith in Christ, and “Paul and his party set sail from Paphos.” (Verse 13)

Don’t miss the significance of that last line. It is no longer “Barnabas and Saul.” Now it is “Paul and his party.” From now on in Acts we read of Paul and Barnabas, or Paul and Silas, or Paul and his companions. Apart from his dramatic salvation experience on the Damascus Road, this was the moment that defined Paul. This victorious power encounter with a demonically inspired sorcerer launched Paul’s ministry into orbit, and on to becoming the most influential leader and theologian in the history of the church.

Paul could have backed down from making a scene. He could have waited to see how team leader Barnabas handled this disruption. He could have tried to out-reason Elymas. Rather, he responded to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, seized this God-ordained moment and smashed the devil in the chops in one of the most dramatic encounters you will read in the entire New Testament. And in this God-moment, Paul was defined for the rest of his life.

You never know on the front side of any given moment if it will be life-defining or just another ordinary experience. But when you stay filled up with the Holy Spirit, and when you sense his prompting, and when you seize that moment to take a dramatic, risky stand against what is clearly the work of the devil, you may very well be in the throes of a moment that defines you—either in your private character or in your public life, or perhaps even both.

If it doesn’t turn out to be that kind of a moment, no big deal! You got to kick the devil’s fanny—and that’s always a good thing. But you never know when your moment of courage will be just the thing that opens the door to even greater things, so be prepared.

Prayer… Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit. And keep me courageously ready to seize any given God-moment for your glory.

One More Thing… “Courage is the human virtue that counts most—courage to act on limited knowledge and insufficient evidence.” —Robert Frost

Read Acts 12

Now Peter continued knocking; and when they opened the
door and saw him, they were astonished.
(Acts 12:16)

Thoughts… I hope you see the humor in what is an otherwise somber story. James, the brother of John, has been executed. Now Peter has been imprisoned and it is his head that is on the chopping block. The megalomaniac King Herod is the culprit, and he knows that killing Peter will gain him the support of the Jewish leaders. In reality, there is nothing funny about this situation. This is as serious as a heart attack, especially for Peter.

But God decides to have a little fun in the midst of all this drama. He sends his angel to deliver Peter from prison, yet the night before his likely execution, Peter is sound asleep. He is in such a deep slumber that the angel has to whack him on the side to wake him up. Even then, Peter assumes his is having a dream.

Once outside the prison gates, Peter realizes that he has become answered prayer. So he goes to the home where the church was “earnestly praying” for his deliverance. When the servant girl, Rhoda, opens the door and sees Peter, she is so excited that answered prayer is standing right there in front of her she forgets to let him in. He continues to stand out on the street, a fugitive on the lam from justice, waiting for a church that has been praying for his release to see that their prayers have been answered.

When Rhoda tries to explain that answered prayer is knocking at the door, the believers think she has lost her mind. They disbelieve the very answer they have been earnestly and constantly praying for. Finally, they hear Peter pounding at the door and let him in. And they were astonished that God had actually answered their prayers.

You have probably done that, too! I sure have. There are things for which we earnestly pray, yet deep in our hearts are convinced we will never see the answer. I am glad that at times God’s mercifully overrides our low expectations and sends answered prayer to knock on our door.

Do you have prayers that are wrapped in low expectations? A healing? The salvation of a wayward child? Deliverance from a dark habit? A financial miracle? A spiritual breakthrough?

Unwrap those prayers, remove your low expectations, and listen up—you may just hear some knocking on your door today.

Prayer… Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!

One More Thing… “Not failure, but low aim, is crime.” —James Russel Lowell

Read Acts 11

“But the voice answered me again from heaven, ‘What
God has cleansed you must not call common.’”
(Acts 11:9)

Thoughts… It happens in every era: People elevate their religious traditions to the level of Divine law. They attach holiness to their spiritual preferences and then fiercely worship what they prefer.

The Jews battled Jesus because he broke with their long-held faith-practices to introduce a strange new approach to spirituality. Now the very Jewish believers who had been liberated by faith in Christ to a new and living way have turned around and are reluctant to accept Gentiles believers into their Christian faith. They have put Peter on the hot seat here in Acts 11 and are demanding answers to why he, a good Jewish boy, went into the home of a Gentile and preached this Good News that was meant for the Jews.

Fortunately, when they heard Peter’s side of things and saw evidence that the Holy Spirit had worked among the Gentiles too, “they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, ‘Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.’” (Acts 11:18)

If it could happen to the Jews to whom God gave the Law of Moses, and if it could happen to the first century Jewish Christians to whom God gave living faith in Jesus Christ, it can happen to you and me as well. In fact, it probably already has, but we just don’t recognize it.

Attaching holiness to a preference and then worship the preference is hard to spot—very hard. It is so subtle. And attaching certain values to spiritual preferences is just naturally justifiable. We like our preferences, so it follows that they must be right, they must be best for us and everybody else, and they must be holy unto the Lord.

The problem is, our preferences can get in the way of what God wants to do to reach unreached people with the Good News of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. God had to root out Jewish religious practices, preferences and rituals in the very first church because they were unnecessary to faith and worse, they were a barrier to Gentiles unfamiliar with Jewish law. Likewise, God has to do that in every era of the church.

Examine your own preferred way of worship and ask yourself if what you value is truly necessary to authentic faith. More importantly, ask yourself if your spiritual preferences are perhaps a barrier to the unreached, unchurched people in your community coming to know the awesome Savior you follow.

Let me give you a hint as to some things that you must be open to changing for the sake of the Gospel: the style of music in your services; the religious language that you use to describe your faith experience, but holds no meaning to spiritual seekers, i.e., “saved,” “washed in the blood,” “tithe,” “let’s have fellowship,” etc.; unexplained orders of service; services times; what you wear; even the look of your house of worship. Now that I’ve got you thinking about this, you could probably add a few more things to the list.

These things aren’t necessarily bad, but just keep in mind, neither are they inherently holy. They are simply what you prefer. So resist allowing your spiritual preferences to become what you worship, and worse, become a barrier to someone else finding faith in Jesus Christ.

Prayer… Dear God, lost people matter to you. Help me to keep that first in my mind. And give me the discernment to see when what I prefer stands in the way of what you prefer—lost people coming to faith in your Son.

One More Thing… “Jesus came to save sinners, not preserve traditions.”

Read Acts 10

The angel answered, “Cornelius, your prayers and gifts to the poor
have come up as a memorial offering before God.”
(Acts 10:4)

Thoughts… Who knows how long Cornelius had faithfully prayed to God and showed kindness to people before he experienced this amazing moment of spiritual breakthrough. The flavor of the story seems to indicate that day after day Cornelius simply offered a life of quiet piety with no real or visible acknowledgment from God.

Perhaps that is your story. Perhaps you have faithfully trusted God, consistently served his cause, and patiently waited for his favor over the years with seemingly nothing to show for it. Maybe you are wondering if you really matter to God or if he even notices your faithful life.

It is not uncommon at times for Christians to feel as if their prayers are nothing more than an exercise in futility and their acts of kindness simply go unnoticed. Honestly, there have been times where we all have felt that our faithfulness just doesn’t matter.

According to this verse, however, and others like it, every act of faith, whether reaching out to God in prayer or touching someone with the love of God, matters greatly to a watching Heavenly Father.

According to Revelation 5:8, every prayer you offer in faith to God rises up to heaven and is offered as precious and pleasing incense before his very throne.

“The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.”

And according to Hebrews 6:10, your every act of kindness toward people counts in God’s book, and will one day result in his kindness being turned back to you.

“God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.”

Cornelius simply, consistently, faithfully set his course for a long obedience in the same direction, and one day there was a spiritual breakthrough. He didn’t know it would happen that day—but the God who watches and remembers had other plans.

This may or may not be your day of spiritual breakthrough—you just don’t know. But here is what you do know: God is watching, he remembers, and he has plans for you!

Prayer… Lord, strengthen me for a long, consistent and determined faithfulness. And may this day be the day of breakthrough into a deeper realm of your favor.

One More Thing… “The reward of being ‘faithful over a few things’ is just the same as being ‘faithful over many things’; for the emphasis falls upon the same word; it is the ‘faithful’ who will enter ‘into the joy of their Lord.’” —Charles S. Robinson