Day 173

2 Kings 3:1–4:17; Acts 14:8-28; Psalm 140:1-13; Proverbs 17:22

IN THE BOOK of Acts, as we witness Paul bringing the gospel into new areas, we also see the disruption it caused —sometimes in nearly manic ways. For example, today we watched Paul preaching in the city of Lystra (which is part of modern-day Turkey). Paul healed a man who had been crippled from birth —and the people thought Paul was a god. They believed Barnabas was Zeus and Paul was Hermes, and it wasn’t long before priests from the temple of Zeus were bringing wreaths of flowers and bulls to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas. Obviously, a crowd far larger than the one Paul had been speaking to developed. And Paul took the opportunity not only to stop people from worshiping him but also to share the gospel.

In the confusion, Jews from cities Paul had already visited arrived and began to speak ill of Paul. The momentum of the crowd shifted. Rather than offering him worship and sacrifice, they stoned him outside the city and left him for dead —the same type of harsh treatment that had happened to Jesus.

The light and Good News that Jesus brought into the world is highly disruptive. It is active and alive and causes life-changing reactions.

How have you been reacting to the gospel these days? Does it continue to pull you forward and deeper into intimacy and union with God? Or has it become a relic of what it once was? If you’ve been in a dry season, consider the disruption of the gospel as it became part of your life in the first place. Go back the way you came. The gospel hasn’t changed. Like the Lystrians, you may have allowed other voices to change your heart’s posture toward it.

MEDITATION:

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.