Acts 12
Peter's Miraculous Escape From Prison
1It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. 2He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. 3When he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. 4After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.
5So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.
6The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. 7Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. "Quick, get up!" he said, and the chains fell off Peter's wrists.
8Then the angel said to him, "Put on your clothes and sandals." And Peter did so. "Wrap your cloak around you and follow me," the angel told him. 9Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. 10They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.
11Then Peter came to himself and said, "Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod's clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating."
12When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. 13Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. 14When she recognized Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, "Peter is at the door!"
15"You're out of your mind," they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, "It must be his angel."
16But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. 17Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. "Tell James and the brothers about this," he said, and then he left for another place.
18In the morning, there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter. 19After Herod had a thorough search made for him and did not find him, he cross-examined the guards and ordered that they be executed.
Herod's Death
Then Herod went from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there a while. 20He had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon; they now joined together and sought an audience with him. Having secured the support of Blastus, a trusted personal servant of the king, they asked for peace, because they depended on the king's country for their food supply.
21On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. 22They shouted, "This is the voice of a god, not of a man." 23Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.
24But the word of God continued to increase and spread.
25When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from[a] Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion:
Romans 8:18-30
Future Glory
18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that[a] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
More Than Conquerors
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,[b] who[c] have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
May 20, 2008
Productive Pain
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READ: Romans 8:18-30
All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. —Romans 8:28
I’ll never forget when our youngest child Matthew fell and broke his wrist. It was grotesque! His arm took a sharp left turn at his wrist and then turned again to resume its normal journey to his hand.
We rushed him to the hospital where the doctor began to set his wrist. I watched as the physician pulled and twisted Matthew’s arm. I wanted to jump up and pull him away from my son! But I simply sat and watched, knowing that the agony was necessary to make Matt whole again.
If we trust earthly doctors to do that for our children, how much more we should be willing to trust God, the Great Physician, to reset our broken lives “to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29). One of God’s purposes in pain is to brand the image of Jesus in our hearts. Can we weep with those who weep? God may need to stain our cheeks with our own tears so that we can genuinely empathize with others as Jesus did. Are we self-sufficient? God may need to strip away our security to conform us to the God-sufficiency that Christ displayed. Are we faithless? It may require a tragedy to teach us to trust the Father as Jesus did.
Next time you feel broken, don’t panic—praise Him! God is at work!
— Joe Stowell
Life’s fractures can be mended
By faith in Christ the Lord—
At first the pain but then the gain
And usefulness restored. —Hess
God’s purpose in pain is to brand His image in our hearts.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
May 20, 2008
Taking Possession of Our Own Soul
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READ:
By your patience possess your souls —Luke 21:19
When a person is born again, there is a period of time when he does not have the same vitality in his thinking or reasoning that he previously had. We must learn to express this new life within us, which comes by forming the mind of Christ (see Philippians 2:5 ). Luke 21:19 means that we take possession of our souls through patience. But many of us prefer to stay at the entrance to the Christian life, instead of going on to create and build our soul in accordance with the new life God has placed within us. We fail because we are ignorant of the way God has made us, and we blame things on the devil that are actually the result of our own undisciplined natures. Just think what we could be when we are awakened to the truth!
There are certain things in life that we need not pray about— moods, for instance. We will never get rid of moodiness by praying, but we will by kicking it out of our lives. Moods nearly always are rooted in some physical circumstance, not in our true inner self. It is a continual struggle not to listen to the moods which arise as a result of our physical condition, but we must never submit to them for a second. We have to pick ourselves up by the back of the neck and shake ourselves; then we will find that we can do what we believed we were unable to do. The problem that most of us are cursed with is simply that we won’t. The Christian life is one of spiritual courage and determination lived out in our flesh.
"A Word With You" by Ron Hutchcraft
Shock Therapy
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Hanna lives in coal country so she's been around miners a lot. Being in youth ministry for years I've been around miners a lot too. Oh wait, that's a different kind - spelled differently. But Hanna and a friend of mine were talking recently about the mines and the miners and a surprising fact came out. Hanna said the most common cause of death among those coal miners was electrocution. They live in a real remote area and the mining operation there is pretty old and relatively primitive. So there are sometimes problems with the wiring in the mine, and miners actually get electrocuted. What compounds the problems is that the nearest doctor is many miles away, which led Hanna to ask the doctor one time if there was anything the local folks could do to help while they're waiting for the doctor to arrive. She was surprised by the doctor's answer. "Well," he said, "there is one thing, hug the injured miner." Well, obviously Hanna wanted to know why. He said, "When people are about to go into shock, I think there is something about a hug, about human touch - about human tenderness.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Shock Therapy."
Not all shocks are electrical are they? People around us are getting shocked every day by bad news they've just received, by bad treatment, by unexpected developments, by a death, or a failure, or by pain in a relationship. And not all hugs are two arms around a person - although that kind of hug is great. But a hug can be a word of encouragement, or an offer to help, a gift, a compliment, a place to rest and recover. It's practical love when someone has really been hit hard.
David never forgot the men who "hugged" him, so to speak, when he was battling shock. The king that David had served loyally turned on him out of jealousy and he wanted him dead. And the king is in hot pursuit of David; he is ready to kill him when he finds him. This was way before electricity, but it must have been a shock to David. Our word for today from the Word of God comes out of that incident: I Chronicles 11:16. It says this, "At that time David was in the stronghold and the Philistine garrison was at Bethlehem. David longed for water and said, ‘Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem.'"
That's his home town, he's nostalgic for it. He's hurting because of the pressure he's under. The Philistines, his enemy, they're in charge of things there. But the Bible says, "So the three broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem and carried it back to David." They knew his language of love at a time when he was really needing encouragement. It was behind enemy lines, but still they sacrificed and risked to bring David a gift that would let him know that he was cared about. Years later when David is king, these men are some of his main men. He never forgot that "hug" he got from them during his shock time.
Sometimes we are so preoccupied with our own business and our own burdens we don't even notice the shock victims around us. But your hug might be just the margin for someone who's been really hit hard. And it isn't that difficult, it usually involves a simple step like a note, or a card, or a good deed, or allowing someone to use your car, or your getaway spot. It can mean just an offer to baby sit, or grocery shop, or maybe cook a meal. Years ago when my wife was bedridden with hepatitis for months, people from our church hugged our family over and over again with some home cooked dinners. You never forget things like that! Neither does Jesus.
In Matthew 10:42 He said, "If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple he will certainly not lose his reward." Jesus notices when we stop to administer shock therapy. When we find a way to show practical love to someone, like even a drink of cold water, He'll turn those hugs, those cups of water, into eternal reward someday. So open your eyes, open your heart to see the shock victim near you and find a way to hug them. And when you do, you'll be acting so very much like Jesus.
