The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus. [Acts 4:13 (NLT)]
The 25th movie featuring James Bond was released last October and, as usual, secret agent 007 defeats an evil villain’s sinister plot to create a new world order. If we were picking someone to save the world from an evil mastermind, the fictional Bond appears to have the right qualifications: suave, sophisticated, brave, patriotic, physically fit, expert in martial arts and marksmanship, observant, intelligent, debonair, good looking, and seemingly invulnerable (at least until this last movie)!
Bond, however, is more than just qualified—he’s well-equipped. The Q-Branch of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) always furnishes him with an assortment of customized vehicles fitted with things like machine guns, smoke and oil dispensers, tracking devices, bulletproof screens and glass, mini-guns in headlights, and ejector seats. Along with his trusty Walther PPK, Q-Branch supplies him with other weaponry and ingenious gadgetry like booby-trapped attaché cases, jet packs, poison pens, homing beacons, a flying submarine, fake fingerprints, and various guns concealed in pens, cigarettes, and ski poles.
God, however, is neither fiction writer nor the British Secret Service and His heroes are much less likely than 007. Take Peter and John, for example—the two unschooled fishermen hardly seem qualified to found a church or preach the gospel. Then there’s the frightened Gideon who’s hiding from the Midianites while threshing wheat when God calls on him. Describing himself as the weakest link in the weakest of families, Gideon doesn’t appear a likely choice to defeat an army. Why would the Jews listen to Moses, a man raised in Pharaoh’s court, was an escaped felon with a speech impediment, and had spent the last forty years in Midian? Esther was just an orphan with a pretty face who married well. Unable to approach the king without risking her life, she hardly seems qualified to save an entire nation from extermination. Then we have the Pharisee Saul, a tentmaker by trade. What qualifications did a man who reviled unclean Gentiles, persecuted Christ’s followers, and wanted to destroy Christianity have to spread the gospel? Hardly as impressive as the fictional James Band, these ordinary people didn’t seem qualified to change the course of history or save anything or anyone and, yet, that’s exactly what they did! The British Secret Service may choose extraordinary men like James Bond for their secret missions, but God picks ordinary people for His and then makes them extraordinary!
Like Q-Branch, however, God equips those He calls. Rather than an Aston Martin, God gave those two Galilean fishermen courage, words, and knowledge enough to amaze even the Sanhedrin. Peter led the Apostles and provided the foundation for the new church while John wrote a gospel, three epistles, and the Book of Revelation. Rather than rocket launchers, God gave Gideon confidence, guidance and a little band of 300 men who overturned an army 400 times their size. Rather than a jet pack, after God equipped Moses with the ability to perform miraculous signs, the words to speak, and Aaron to speak them, the runaway tongue-tied shepherd became the most important figure in Judaism. Because God supplied the beautiful Esther with courage, a shrewd plan, and a series of events that played into that plan, Jews throughout the world celebrate the way she saved them from extermination. Once God supplied Saul with a life-changing conversion and the Holy Spirit, the tentmaker we know as Paul was equipped to spread Christianity to Jews and Gentiles alike.
Like Gideon and the rest of this cast, we have more than our share of faults, limitations, doubt, and fear. Rather than calling the qualified and equipped, however, God qualifies and equips the ones He calls. Rest assured that when God calls us to a task, rather than sophisticated weapons or ingenious gadgets, He will provide us with whatever skills or tools we need.
Each of us may be sure that if God sends us on stony paths He will provide us with strong shoes, and He will not send us out on any journey for which He does not equip us well. [Alexander MacLaren]
To some people, today is known as Groundhog Day but, because it is the fortieth day after Christmas, many Christians know it as Candlemas, the Presentation of our Lord, or the Purification of Mary. According to Mosaic law, the mother of a boy child was considered “unclean” for seven days following the birth of her child. She then had to wait another 33 days to be purified from her bleeding before she could enter the Temple. (If she bore a girl child, her purification time was doubled.) Once a woman’s time of purification was over, she was to come to the Temple and offer up a sacrifice of both a lamb and a pigeon or turtledove. If the family couldn’t afford the lamb, a turtledove or pigeon could be substituted. Forty days after Jesus’ birth, in fulfillment of this law, Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple to make their offering and present their son to the Lord.
Created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Doomsday Clock’s purpose is to show the world how close it is to destroying itself with technology. Midnight on the clock indicates world-wide catastrophe and the end of the world as we know it. When it was reset for 2022 last week, the good news is that it’s no closer to midnight than last year. The bad news is that we remain at doom’s doorstep with only 100 seconds until midnight!
Although Elijah had just won an amazing victory over Baal and his prophets, we find the prophet running for his life in 1 Kings 19. The journey of over 120 miles left him physically exhausted and, having endured so many setbacks and challenges, the disheartened prophet was emotionally exhausted, as well. Wanting what he saw as a hopeless situation to end, He begged the Lord for death and he’s not the only one of the Bible’s heroes to do so. Overwhelmed by the heavy burdens he carried, Moses cried to God, “If you are going to continue doing this to me, then kill me now. If you care about me, put me to death, and then I won’t have any more troubles.” [Numbers 11:15] A discouraged and frustrated Jonah told God it would be better for him to die than to live. Job, in his despair and agony, and Jeremiah, in his disappointment after decades of prophesying with no appreciable results, were so miserable that they cursed the day they were born! Even the Apostle Paul admitted having been nearly overwhelmed by his troubles. Yet, as hopeless at their situations seemed, none of them died when they wanted to and none took their own lives. God did not abandon them and they did not abandon life.
When we pray about a decision, we often set the desired outcome we want rather than ask God to reveal His will to us. Instead of trusting our decision to Him and bending our will to His, we want God to bend His will to our desires. If His response to our pleas isn’t the one we want, we refuse to recognize it or complain that He never answered our prayers! Until we’re willing to step back and say, “Thy will be done,” we can’t truly discern God’s will.
Paul was speaking metaphorically of his thorn and whether it was a spiritual, emotional, physical affliction, or something else entirely, we don’t know. Since Paul dictated his letters, some speculate that that he had poor eyesight: perhaps cataracts or macular degeneration. Then again, severe arthritis in his hands may have prevented him from holding a stylus. Paul may have had a chronic medical problem such as gout, migraines, severe asthma, or spinal stenosis. It may have been a person: perhaps, Alexander the metalsmith who was harming his ministry. Considering the number of times the apostle was arrested, the thorn may have been an old injury from the many beatings inflicted upon him. Paul even may have suffered from bouts of depression or the 1st century equivalent of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The identity of his thorn (or even thorns) is unimportant to us. It is how Paul dealt with his thorn that matters.
Devotions of the Heart 