Roman prisons were terrible places. Offenders were stripped, flogged, and placed in leg irons chains. Their clothes soaked in blood and kept in 'inner cell' (Acts 16:24 NIV). That's where Paul and Silas were imprisoned. Lack of water, cramped conditions, and the stench of toilet that makes sleep impossible. Prisoners routinely begged for death, and some even committed suicide. It was your worst nightmare! Yet 'Paul and Silas were...singing...and the other prisoners were listening' ( Acts 16:25 NIV).
Eugene Peterson paraphrases it like this: 'The other prisoners couldn't believe their ears'. Talk about real impact! Paul's attitude impressed lives before his religious beliefs ever reached them. Let's face it, anybody can sing in church, including hypocrites. But when you can praise God in the midst of pain, pressure, and problems, that's something else.
That's what I call 'Faith Perspective'. Hear this: It's not what you have lost, but what you have left that counts! Paul didn't just sing in prison, he wrote some of his best epistles there. Hear what he said: 'Everything happening to me in this jail only serves to make Christ more accurately known, regardless of whether I live or die.
They didn't shut me up; they gave me a pulpit! Alive, I'm Christ's messenger; dead, I'm his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can't lose' (Philippians 1:19-21 MSG). They are beyond any life threats. Their strength comes from a source that's not diminished by outside circumstances.
#Abafame
#thegracefactor
#adombinti
No comments:
Post a Comment