Empowered

Stand with Boldness and Faith in the Supremacy of Christ and Make Your Appeal to God! 

Life Lessons Devotional Series, Thursday May 18, 2023

Scripture: Acts 4: ²³ On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. ²⁴ When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. ²⁵ You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: “‘Why do the nations rage
    and the peoples plot in vain?
²⁶ The kings of the earth rise up
    and the rulers band together
against the Lord
    and against his anointed one.^{’  27} Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. ²⁸ They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. ²⁹ Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. ³⁰ Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

³¹ After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

Life Lesson: The call of the Lord upon His church is never to align ourselves with the godless and wicked demands that will inevitably come from the world, but to stand with boldness and faith in the supremacy of Christ and make our appeal to God, not the world; and invite the unlimited power of God to move in us and through us to transform lives! 

– Peter and John were warned by the authorities of their day to cease and to desist in spreading the Gospel message.  This was a requirement they would not obey.  Their response to the demand of their rulers was this, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! ²⁰ As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”  Church, I believe this is something we have failed to do in our day and age. 

– We have listened to the authorities’ demands and cowered instead of standing resolute in Jesus’ name.  We have acquiesced to the immoral demands of our depraved society instead of preaching holiness, without which no person will ever see God, Heb. 12:14!

– The raging of the nations against the truth of God’s Word is nothing new! How then shall we respond?  We must do what Peter and John did, gather together with other believers and pray!  Pray in the knowledge that while the nations plot evil and rage violently, God is sovereign!  The raging of the nations, and the globalists, is a firecracker compared to the world ending inferno of God’s judgment and wrath!

– If we will not stand in the power of God, we will not stand at all!  Take your eyes off of today’s Sodom and Gomorrah and fix your eyes on the exalted Savior!  There is no question as to who will win this battle! The victory is won in Jesus’ name! Amen!