Devotion, Oct 18, 2013: Acts 18 Staying a Little Bit Longer PROMISES TO POCKET From the old Testament to the New Testament we read of stories of Gods prophets, messengers, preachers and teachers who were brought to the brink of losing their patience over the hard-headedness of their audience to whom they were sent. Even the great Moses was tried several times in this. In fact, it was in one of them that he failed to restrain his irritation and it cost him the trip to the promised land (Num 20:8-12; Deut 34:4). Jeremiah repeatedly challenged the people of God with the question How long... because there seemed to be no sign of repentance anywhere. Even the Lord Jesus patience were sometimes tried by the hardness of the heart of His own countrymen. Here, we see Paul reaching the end of his rope with them too. At Corinth, he was reviled by some of these men, causing him to shake his garments and said to them, Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles (v.6). And he would have done so if God had not prevailed over him through a vision where he received a message that there are still many people of God in the place that he needed to reach (vs. 9-10). He then stayed at Corinth for a total of 18 months (v. 11). POINTS TO PONDER Sometimes, at the end of our patience, we may easily say things that seem to express our immediate sentiment. But in our later moment of sobriety, we find ourselves relenting. Or sometimes, Gods prompting causes us to reconsider. When Paul left Corinth and arrived at Ephesus, we are told that immediately he was back to his usual ways: visiting the synagogue and reasoning with the Jews (v. 19). In spite of his earlier statement that he was done with them and was going instead to preach to the Gentiles, he could not get that concern out of his own heart. Patience may run out for a moment, but love for the lost has a permanent dwelling in the heart of a true evangelist. And where there are people, there are possibilities of lost ones being found. Paul knew this, or God reminded him of this, and he did as he was supposed to do. Unfortunately, in this life, what we want is not always what we get. Initially, that is. There are many things that we would rather prefer if we have things our own way. Paul would have preferred soft-hearted listeners and easy converts. We would prefer these kinds of audience too today, if we can have our way. But the reality of the Kingdom of God is such that what God sends to us are mostly what we dont expect. If we dont have the patience to do the work, who will? If we are looking for easy converts all the time, we severely limit the results that the Lord may give to us. We have also taken the work of evangelisation and put our own restrictions around it that the Lord did not put there in the first place. PLANS TO PURSUE In Pauls experience, just when he was running out of patience, the Lord intervened and told him, He still has many people in the city and Paul should just go on working until God is done with the place. For us who may have the tendency to run out of patience quickly too, lets pray that at the critical moments, God may also intervene that we can stay a little bit longer. Sometimes, that little bit of time, little bit of advice, little bit of patience is all it takes to meet with a God-ordained opportunity at a divine-appointed time thats heart changing for the most hard-hearted and the most life-broken would-be convert. Lets take people as they come because the invitation of Jesus to them is to come with all their burdens, cares, problems and idiosyncrasies. All we have to do is look where we all also came from and realize that of such is the Kingdom of God.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 23:04:17 +0000
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