Both Malachi and Paul gave their readers God’s reassurance—God sees, God listens, God notes, God cares. The Book of Remembrance is for eternity, and those who reverence and love God will find their names in that book.
Acts Wednesday: Chapter 11, From Peter to Paul
Peter’s simple, straightforward logic, and God’s obvious affirmation, rendered them speechless. There was no tenable argument, no counterpoint could be made, God had made His desire and will abundantly clear. But this issue was going to crop again and again. Prejudice is hard to get rid of.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 10, Cornelius Born Again
Often, it seems, the way God does that is to shake things up with the unexpected, the unanticipated. Depending on how entrenched you and I are in the way we view something, will determine how willing we are to even entertain the new ways, new perspectives, and new challenges God presents.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 9, Breakthroughs
You know how it feels to be stuck? You can’t see any way out, and you sure wish you could get out. This onramp at the end of Acts chapter 9, leading to Acts chapter 10, is all about breakthroughs, Peter willing to cooperate with God as God began to expand the church and take it in new directions.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 9, From Saul to Paul
Never underestimate the value of one person being brought to a saving faith. The only reason you and I know about Ananias is because of his willing response to God resulted in the conversion of this one man, Saul, who became the apostle Paul.
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1 Peter 3, Do Not Fear?
Peter intimated there is a redemptive quality about suffering for the good, for doing good, for goodness’s sake, as unto the Lord, who intimately knows what this suffering is like, and what it entails.
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Minor Prophets: Malachi, Refiner’s Fire
God would begin with the spiritual leaders of the people, first purifying them, then refining them. Their public sanctification would necessarily involve intense suffering, for the heat of the refiner’s fire would bring all the impurities to the surface, where they would be seen and removed.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 8, The Ethiopian Eunuch
This is a word to you and me who have, at one time or another, felt permanently condemned by something in our past, knowing with a certitude almost as hard-fast as Deuteronomy, that we don’t belong, that we have been permanently scarred or mutilated by something (or someone) unspeakable. Or, we know in our hearts it was us who did the unspeakable thing, and it can never be undone.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 8, Simon the Sorcerer
God working miracles through Philip drew the attention of a powerful sorcerer named Simon. He was the proud resident magician of Samaria, even considered by many people to be divine, and he had a wide and loyal following. But not, Simon was losing many of his followers to the gospel of Jesus Christ, so he came to investigate this new phenomenon.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 7, Stephen
I think, for me, this story means determining to see adversity and ordeals as opportunities to see the spiritual realm more clearly, and to expect God’s glory to be revealed in the moment, even in me. Growth is not the goal, it’s simply the side-effect. The goal is to incarnate Jesus, reveal Jesus, and to become ever closer to Jesus.
