Saturday, April 15
Reading: Acts 8:1-8
Key Verse: Acts 8:4 (NIV) — 4 Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.
Devotional Thought: The Law of Unintended Consequences states that actions of people always have effects that are unanticipated or unintended. The intended consequence of persecution was to stop the spread of Christianity when, in fact, it actually resulted in the more rapid and far-reaching spread of Christianity. Persecution in Jerusalem resulted in believers leaving the more highly concentrated Christian region to cities and countries where there was a lower concentration of faith. Persecution resulted in individuals going on mission trips!
The opponents of faith think they have achieved victory when actually they are hastening their own demise! God must be laughing.
God has a way of taking something that others intended to bring you harm and turn it into an opportunity for ministry and spiritual growth. Ask the Old Testament patriarch Joseph who was sold into slavery only to end up second in command in Egypt, the world power at the time. He puts into words this law of unintended consequences so clearly when he said to his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
This fall America has fallen in love with the television show This Is Us. In the first episode of the series the doctor who has to break the news to the new father that one of his triplets was lost in delivery say this: “I like to think that one day you'll be an old man like me talkin' a young man's ear off explainin' to him how you took the sourest lemon that life has to offer and turned it into something resembling lemonade.”
God takes lemons and makes lemonade!
Action: When faced with a setback, consider how
God can take that setback and make something good out of it. This will add a whole new dimension to how
you deal with difficulties. Believe that
God has an unintended yet good consequence in the struggles you face.
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