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DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

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Acts 13:42-43

42 As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath. 43 When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.

NIV

It appears these people wanted to hear about God, and about Jesus and about how God actually cares and interacts with people. They certainly must had the knowledge of the history Israel and knew how all that had happened, yet they also were living in a time when it seemed God was not with them. It had been four hundred years since God had spoken to the people and now they are hearing he not only spoke but he sent his Son to redeem, to rescue them once more, a rescue from death itself. It would seem that people really need to know the truth. Even people who are religious but do not know the truth about Jesus, need to be rescued from death. The Jews that were attending the synagogue certainly were religious but they did not understand eternal life. Some of these people urged Paul and Barnabas to continue being influenced by God and speaking about these spiritual matters. What can we learn from this? How can this apply to our lives? Certainly we need to hear words from individuals who are influenced by the God. When we find such a person we need to urge them to continue in the grace of God, to continue being influenced by God and speaking those words of wisdom. But we also can learn that we need to continue in the grace of God. We need to continue to be living under the influence of the divine creator of everything. If we are to be an effective witness for Jesus, people need to see us as being influenced by God. The reason Paul and Barnabas were invited to speak further about what they talked about is because the people saw the evidence of the grace of God in them. People hunger for the truth, if they can see the truth in action, not the good deeds kind of action, but the influence of God in our lives, kind of action. We really need to live like that, under his influence, not our own. When we live under our own influence we have all those feelings of jealousy, envy, pride, anger, revenge, bitterness, rage, hurt feelings, unforgiveness, alone with a host of emotional or mental wrong thinking. When we are under our own influence we withdraw into our self even more, traveling down the proverbial rat hole. We need to see the truth and allow God to influence us. We need to continue to live in the grace of God each and every day.