Acts 24: God’s not a Quickie Mart!

Acts 24 starts off with the high priest and some elders bringing in a high class lawyer named Tertullus, to present their case against Paul. Tertullus comes before Felix (the governor, not the cat) and begins his case by telling him how great he is and that he has brought prosperity to the nation. Basically Tertullus is just flattering Felix so that he will listen to what he has to say. Felix was not known as a great governor, he was known as a master of cruelty and lust, who exercised his powers of a king with the spirit of a slave. It says in Romans that “who do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple.” I think that flattery is just insincere gestures to try and gain advantage in a situation. God wants us to praise him out of choice not out of obligation. When we give God insincere praise all we are doing is flattering him, and God doesn’t want that. Why are we trying to gain an advantage with God? Why can’t we go to God and just tell him the truth? God doesn’t want us to sugarcoat everything thing that we bring to him.

So eventually Felix makes a decision on what he wants to do with Paul. Even though he knows he is innocent he stops the trial and said “When Lysias the commander comes down, I will make a decision on your case.” So he commanded the centurion to keep Paul but to let him have some liberty. Felix tried to make both sides happy here. He knew that Paul was innocent, but yet he didn’t want to identify himself with Paul’s gospel and the Christians. So he just decided not to make any decisions and just keep Paul in custody. So after a couple days Felix brought his wife to hear Paul’s testimony. But when Felix heard Paul talking about the righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come Felix becomes afraid. Hearing the gospel and what Paul had to say made him scared of how life is was, and for those who are intending on rejecting Jesus it should make them afraid. Felix then says something that caught my attention right off. “Go away for now; when I have a convenient time I will call for you.” How many of us are this way toward God. We want to live our own lives and do whatever we want but when it is convenient for us, and then we want God to listen. Why do we think that God is just a late night convenience store? When we get that small craving for something sweet in the middle of the night we can just go to the quickie mart and pick it up. You should consult God on every situation that you come to even if it is just something minor. Why is it that when something goes bad, thats when we start to pray for God to intervene. Why do we only pray when it rains and not when the sun shines? I think that most of the time when things are going well we think that it’s because of the choices WE made. And then when things go bad we run to God and want him to fix the situation immediately. We must trust God in all things.

God should never be put on a shelf nor can we ask Him to be “on-call.”
Peace Out, Cub Scout
Temp