Yesterday I was casually sitting on my bedroom floor reading my Bible, Acts 5 to be exact, and I came across a verse that stopped me in my imaginary tracks.
In these passages, the apostles Peter and John are walking around the city performing miracles, praising God and preaching to the lost all in the name of Jesus. As usual The Pharisees and Sadducees are upset, maybe even a little offended by these acts and they call the men in.
"When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death"
This is when a Pharisee by the name of Gamaliel steps up to warn the Sanhedrin of the possible consequences of putting these men to death.
"Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He to was killed and all his followers were scattered. Therefore in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is of God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."
The leaders found Gamaliel to be right in this assumption and decided not to kill Peter and John. So they called them back in and fairly warned them to speak no more of Jesus. Then they had both Peter and John flogged. And they were released.
Now this is the part I was getting at.
After this, the Bible says,
"The apostles left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they had been counted worthy to suffer disgrace for the name."
Basically, they had endured a very painful form of punishment and they rejoiced because they were WORTHY enough to suffer for the name of Jesus.
Do we do this?
We are lucky enough to live where we can openly profess the name of God and not be beaten for it. The Apostles had it much harder than we do. But that doesn't mean we won't suffer as Christians. Maybe you already have and if you haven't you WILL. And so my question is, will you count yourself worthy to suffer for so great a cause? Will you get mad at God? Will you rejoice because he has called you to suffer for him?
We must choose to live by faith and read our Bible daily so when the time comes for our faith to be tested we will be prepared. God didn't put us on this earth so we can live a little and have a good time, but rather be a light in a dark world. And this sometimes requires us to suffer so his name can be lifted high.
