ACTS of the Apostles, Part 2
Thursday, September 29
ACTS of the Apostles, Part 2
Learning How to be Daring and Dynamic
Read Acts 26:1-11
Focus Verses: Acts 26:6-8
“And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king! Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?”
Paul grew up in the Jewish faith and became a devout Pharisee. When He accepted Christ as Savior and Lord, he became what we call a Messianic Jew—a Jew who believes that the long-awaited Messiah has come and that the Messiah is Jesus Christ.
God had Paul minister to both Jews and Gentiles. Oddly enough, some of his greatest opposition came from fellow Jews. In Acts 26, he was on trial in front of Agrippa, king of Judea at the time. Agrippa sided with the orthodox Jews and was all too eager to make life hard for the Jewish Christians. At this trial, God led Paul to compliment Agrippa on his knowledge of the Jewish customs and recent theological controversies, appealing to the king’s ego. Paul then listed his own Jewish credentials as evidence, including the fact that Paul had been a devout Pharisee. He reminded Agrippa that one of the doctrines of the Pharisees was belief in the resurrection, so Jesus rising from the dead was not so incredible. This way, Paul defused the key argument against him.
Every day I am more amazed at how God has planned out our lives. We may think that our lives are a random sequence of events. But through each experience, God is preparing us for our next divine appointment in our spiritual journey. If Paul had not been raised in the strict Jewish faith and trained as a Pharisee, he would not have been able to hold up the resurrection of the dead as evidence. The rest of his defense before King Agrippa that Jesus had risen from the dead wouldn’t have held up against his accusers. Moreover, they wouldn’t have listened to his words about Jesus. God knew long before Paul was born that he would need to stand one day before King Agrippa and share the truth of the gospel. God gave him all the ammunition he would need by letting him have specific experiences throughout his lifetime.
We need to realize that everything we go through prepares us for our next opportunity to minister to others. Sometimes we may have to stand firmly for what we believe, like Paul did. Other times God wants us to encourage others by sharing similar experiences that we have been through. Paul said: “Blessed be the…God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any ]trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3). Whenever God brings us through a difficult time, we can use that to encourage someone else to trust God to get them through, too. Our mess becomes our message!
We praise you, Lord, that we are part of Your plan! You ordain every good thing that happens to us. You allow certain difficult things to happen so that we can learn to trust You more and to grow spiritually. Thank you that You use every experience in our lives to prepare us to minister more effectively to others and to bring them into a deeper relationship with You. We will continue to ask: use us Lord! Use us big or use us little…just use us! In Jesus’ name and for the Father’s glory. Amen.
