Do the Difficult Thing Acts 5:19-20
“But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the gates of the prison, and taking them out he said, “Go, stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this Life.”(NASB95)”
One of the hardest things we can do as Christians is fully obeying God. It can be difficult, especially when He calls us to do something difficult. Soon after I became a Christian, I felt the calling to quit my job and to enter seminary. I did this without really objecting and continued to serve Him to my best ability. Years later when I became a pastor, I quickly found that following God will often put you at odds with mankind. I learned this as I soon had to become mediator and peacemaker between arguing people. My first year of ministry was marked with much conflict that I inherited and even more anguish as I was routinely beaten down by those closest to me. It was hard.
In the passage in Acts 5, the apostles were jailed for sharing Jesus and for disobeying the Sanhedrin’s command to stop using Jesus’ name. While in prison, an angel of the Lord came and freed them. The angel could have given them many commands, but he told them to go back and continue to preach Jesus at the temple. This is significant because this would have been a public display of faith. The same people that imprisoned them would have been there and would see them freed. They would become angry again and seek to once more imprison them or even put them to death.
God will call us to do difficult things in our lives. Not everything will be easy or peaceful, even though we want it to be. But we do know that even when we are experiencing hardship or difficulty, God will be with us, just as He was with the apostles. The apostles were let out of prison. Instead of hiding, they went back to the public and continued sharing Jesus. They did the difficult thing God asked. We are to do the same. We are to trust that He will empower us and help us operate according to His will.
One of the hardest things we can do as Christians is fully obeying God. It can be difficult, especially when He calls us to do something difficult. Soon after I became a Christian, I felt the calling to quit my job and to enter seminary. I did this without really objecting and continued to serve Him to my best ability. Years later when I became a pastor, I quickly found that following God will often put you at odds with mankind. I learned this as I soon had to become mediator and peacemaker between arguing people. My first year of ministry was marked with much conflict that I inherited and even more anguish as I was routinely beaten down by those closest to me. It was hard.
In the passage in Acts 5, the apostles were jailed for sharing Jesus and for disobeying the Sanhedrin’s command to stop using Jesus’ name. While in prison, an angel of the Lord came and freed them. The angel could have given them many commands, but he told them to go back and continue to preach Jesus at the temple. This is significant because this would have been a public display of faith. The same people that imprisoned them would have been there and would see them freed. They would become angry again and seek to once more imprison them or even put them to death.
God will call us to do difficult things in our lives. Not everything will be easy or peaceful, even though we want it to be. But we do know that even when we are experiencing hardship or difficulty, God will be with us, just as He was with the apostles. The apostles were let out of prison. Instead of hiding, they went back to the public and continued sharing Jesus. They did the difficult thing God asked. We are to do the same. We are to trust that He will empower us and help us operate according to His will.
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