Saturday Reading: Acts 16:25-32
Key Verse: Acts 16:25
25 And toward midnight Paul and Silas prayed and praised God in a hymn. And the prisoners listened to them.
Devotion:
Have you ever felt moved by music? Well, you could say that everyone here in this story was very moved by the music! Paul and Silas were in prison and being the Christian men they were they accepted the situation they were in and began to lift up the name of God through praise! No you don’t all have to sit down and sing a hymn right now – though it would not be a bad thing! The hymns that we sing now are not the same as they would have sung back then! Instead they are a more modern interpretation of the type of things that would be sung about back then. History and life dictate many of the words to the hymns that we sing now and as life goes on so those songs change... but praising God will never change!
God was not about to sit around and let Paul and Silas rot in a prison cell; instead He allowed them to be given the perfect opportunity to praise Him and then use what happened to glorify Him. This was not something happening by chance but rather the will of God. How else was He able to get through to the guards other than by something earth shattering – quite literally in this case! You can imagine some of the things that they would hear every day being in a prison and so for the Word of God to be able to get in, God would first have to set the scene and then have to do something that would shut up the noise from the inmates!
God will not let the right opportunity pass without doing something. We need to be ready to be able to take up what He gives us and to use it to glorify Him. God continues to give us those moments but unless we are listening for them we will miss them time and time again! If we surround ourselves with things of the world then we should not be able to hear the things of God when they do come right in front of us! God does try to get through to us, but we tend to exclude Him through the things that we do instead of listening out for His will in our lives. Stop, look and listen!
Points to Ponder:
What do you get up to?
Does that exclude God?
Key Verse: Acts 16:25
25 And toward midnight Paul and Silas prayed and praised God in a hymn. And the prisoners listened to them.
Devotion:
Have you ever felt moved by music? Well, you could say that everyone here in this story was very moved by the music! Paul and Silas were in prison and being the Christian men they were they accepted the situation they were in and began to lift up the name of God through praise! No you don’t all have to sit down and sing a hymn right now – though it would not be a bad thing! The hymns that we sing now are not the same as they would have sung back then! Instead they are a more modern interpretation of the type of things that would be sung about back then. History and life dictate many of the words to the hymns that we sing now and as life goes on so those songs change... but praising God will never change!
God was not about to sit around and let Paul and Silas rot in a prison cell; instead He allowed them to be given the perfect opportunity to praise Him and then use what happened to glorify Him. This was not something happening by chance but rather the will of God. How else was He able to get through to the guards other than by something earth shattering – quite literally in this case! You can imagine some of the things that they would hear every day being in a prison and so for the Word of God to be able to get in, God would first have to set the scene and then have to do something that would shut up the noise from the inmates!
God will not let the right opportunity pass without doing something. We need to be ready to be able to take up what He gives us and to use it to glorify Him. God continues to give us those moments but unless we are listening for them we will miss them time and time again! If we surround ourselves with things of the world then we should not be able to hear the things of God when they do come right in front of us! God does try to get through to us, but we tend to exclude Him through the things that we do instead of listening out for His will in our lives. Stop, look and listen!
Points to Ponder:
What do you get up to?
Does that exclude God?