Monday – Gospels and Acts

Reading – Acts 5

Highlight Verse:

“The apostles left the high council rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.”
‭‭Acts of the Apostles‬ ‭5‬:‭41‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Let’s be clear, the apostles were just flogged.

Flogged!

Not slapped on the wrist with a fine or a warning.

Beaten with a whip.

There is nothing in the description about the severity of the flogging. Given the fact that they carried on as before tells me that it wasn’t debilitating.

But, if anything approaching that were to happen today,

we’d be suing for damages,

not to mention blasting it all over social media to get people riled up against a government that would do such a thing.

Instead, they rejoiced that they were counted worthy of suffering for Jesus, and then went right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Messiah.

Here’s my take on that.

No matter what they came up against, they stayed on target and kept spreading the word about Jesus.

All during this time, the Church continued to grow despite, or maybe because of the oppression from the religious leaders and government.

I don’t know about you but I can get distracted by the political climate.

When Christian opinions are blocked by the government or the media establishment, it really gets my hackles up.

Despite that, I need to always remember to stay on mission to help people to find and follow Jesus.

What is your mission?
Are there things that can distract you from that mission?