FRIDAY November 24th
Acts 9:23–27
‘And after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him: But their laying await was known of Saul. And they watched the gates day and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket. And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.’
I have decided to include these verses in our devotion today before we leave Acts 9 for, we see here a contrast to the reception that Saul had when he went to the disciples in Damascus, to when he went to those in Jerusalem. In Damascus they welcomed him, in Jerusalem, they were afraid of him! They did not believe he was a disciple! His old reputation was still doing the rounds rather than his new reputation as a child of God! It is essential that we live as believers in such a way that we have a good and a godly reputation, that means that we must live differently than the way we did before conversion and not continue in the same old ways.
Thankfully there was one among the disciples who was willing to accept Paul and his name was Barnabus, the end result being that he was eventually accepted and in Jerusalem as in Damascus, he preached boldly in the name of Jesus.
What else can we learn from this? Well, not everyone will accept us for who we are as Christians, even some of those who we may be familiar with will reject us once we begin to declare our faith, we need to look for those who will be like Barnabus, encourager’s who will also be sympathetic toward us and who knows, eventually others may want to hear more from us concerning our faith and in Acts 20:24 Paul would later say ‘But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God’.
We need to be ready to testify to the gospel of the grace of God, and we can only truly do this if we are showing through our lives the difference that the gospel has made.