How many times do we start to do a good deed only to have it come back to bite us?
We offer to babysit our sister’s kids only to have them break the new vase we just bought. We join the group to organize the Angel Tree donations, only to find everyone else bails on us, and the job is left up to us. We reorganize our spouse’s closet only to receive a scathing rebuke.
Sometimes it feels like the path to good works is uphill through molasses and freezing rain. Even so, God will be with us, for he has promised to keep his hand on us in everything we do.
Let’s see how the leaders in the early Church handled the first true crisis of opposition that came their way.
It all started with a good deed.
Peter and John found a lame man at the Gate Beautiful, a shining Corinthian brass edifice over sixty feet wide and thirty feet tall. In the midst of all this splendor, the lame man cried out to them, “Money, good sirs! Please!”
Peter and John could have walked on by, for they had nothing to give the man. No one would have thought anything of it. However, they stepped out in the name of Christ, and they offered the man healing.
How great was that? In Acts 3:13 Peter stood before the watching crowd and told them, “This healing power comes from Jesus, the man you condemned to death, in spite of Pilate’s wish to let him go.”
If they had given the lame man a great number of coins, no one would have praised their good deed. However, for healing the man, and giving Jesus the credit, they were hauled into prison.
They spoke no less boldly to the Jewish leaders. However, we read in Acts 4:14 that with the healed man standing at their side, the proof of their good deed was indisputable, and the Jewish leaders could say nothing against them.
What did the Jewish leaders do? In Acts 4:21, we read where they ranted and raved, threatened and cajoled. However, they could not do more, for Peter and John had done nothing wrong. The Jewish leaders could find no grounds upon which to build a false case.
They were forced to let Peter and John go.
There was an upside to the unfairness of all this. The Jewish leaders were forced to listen to Peter’s Spirit-inspired protest. Men who had tuned out Jesus as an irritant and a charlatan heard Peter’s statement of faith and his derision of the way the Jewish leaders had condemned him to death.
Talk of a God-given opportunity to witness. God had taken what was meant for evil and turned it to good. When the world comes at us, we should look for God’s opening to do something good in the midst of the crisis.
In Acts 4:23 we read where Peter and John went back to the other believers, and when they told all that had happened, everyone lifted their voices and praised God.
When the world comes against us, God will show us opportunities to turn it around to our good. We will be able to praise the Father above, for his is the grace that carries us through all difficult times.
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