The disciples were a little shell-shocked after Christ’s death. They were really expecting Him to overthrow the earthly Roman kingdom in a lot of ways and still quite didn’t get what He was really here to accomplish. But after Jesus’ resurrection we see a spark light among these disciples, as they understood that His Kingdom was much greater and bigger than they ever imagined.
Read Acts 5:40-42. Setting this story up for you, the disciples were preaching and teaching about the story of Jesus everywhere they could. This was greatly upsetting the spiritual leaders in Israel at the time and was contrary to what they were teaching. The problem was that there was a large following for these disciples and to kill them would make them martyrs, only advancing their cause. So what to do? They decided to just beat them to a point where they could barely even physically endure it.
That’s where these verses in Acts gain their beauty. At the point of experiencing tremendous pain and told to not preach about Jesus or they may experience it again, the disciples leave rejoicing for being counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s sake. Then it states that they didn’t cease to preach and teach about Jesus wherever they went! It was going to take a lot more than threatening their lives to stop their message.
It’s rare to see that kind of commitment, but Jesus is glorified when our lives are all about Him and how we can display Him to the world in spite of the opposition we encounter.
Think About This...
- How have you reacted when something didn’t turn out the way you thought it would?
- How can you prepare yourself for that moment to better reflect Christ to others?
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