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All Things Done in the Name of God        

By: Ray Larson

Posted: May 13, 2016

Category: Daily Devotional

Have you ever been so angry that you said and/or did something that you knew in your heart and mind to be absolutely wrong? What’s wrong is wrong whether you consider yourself to be a Christian or not! This lesson, in the Book of Acts telling of the stoning of God’s servant Stephen, just seems to be totally out of place and very wrong in any time or age. It appears to be something you might find on the last page of Ledger, not on any page of The Bible! But here it is in Acts 7! We have come to learn that the Book of Acts is the telling of the beginning and growth of God’s Church here on earth. Yet, to read this story, and it is right here in Acts, a Book of Holy Scripture, given to us to teach how life is to be lived, we learn when it comes to right from wrong, and we are to always choose the right, even if it doesn’t appear right.

Of course those of us living in this day and age would never act is such a way as the book of Acts tells us. It would not matter how angry we would become, or how wrong the act done. We would never be involved in the taking the life of another person. In the living of our day, The Church of our Lord and Savior Jesus teaches us that life is to be lived with love no matter what.

So what is the lesson you and I are to learn in this meditation? From my Bible, the translation is, the Common English Bible, we read from it, that no matter how wrong we are treated, we are to pray in the spirit of loving forgiveness. “As they battered him with stones, Stephen prayed ‘Lord Jesus, accept my life!’ Falling to his knees, he shouted, ‘Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!’ Then he died.” Acts 7: 59-60. No matter what happens or whoever does terrible bad things to us, even if life itself is being taken away, we ought to pray as Stephen did; “But Stephen, enabled by the Holy Spirit, stared into heaven and saw God’s majesty and Jesus standing at God’s right side.” Acts 7:55. If we can only do this, nothing in life can take us away from loving others as we are loved; seeing Jesus makes us like Jesus.

Prayer

Lord God, Jesus Christ is our Savior, we are to live as He taught, if someone hits us on the left check, turn to him the right also. May we teach what we have been taught, by our living more than by our words. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.