8/15/11

Plan "B"


Remember these tests from school?  Have you ever known anyone who tried doing what this "student" did?  I have, and I wish I didn't; he became a relative and the stupidity didn't end there, it continued his entire life.  Ugh!  To me, the stupidity was not that the person who took the test above didn't know the answers, it was that they tried to bluff their way through.  You can't beat genuineness.  Here is a prime example...


Acts 19:11-20 (WEB)
11) God worked special miracles by the hands of Paul,
12) so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and the evil spirits went out.
13) But some of the itinerant Jews, exorcists, took on themselves to invoke over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, “We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.”
14) There were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did this.
15) The evil spirit answered, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?”
16) The man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
17) This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived at Ephesus. Fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.
18) Many also of those who had believed came, confessing, and declaring their deeds.
19) Many of those who practiced magical arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. They counted their price, and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver.
20) So the word of the Lord was growing and becoming mighty.

Paul was sent by God; he didn't want to be, he just was.  And God used him in ways he would have never understood before being confronted by the risen Christ.  The Jews in this episode tried to be something they were not and paid for it with hurt and humiliation.  Ultimately, God used even their stupidity to change the world.  How ironic!  Old is old and new is different.  Every day we are tested in regard to how we think, act and feel.  Consider what you do; eventually God will grade us all.  If your life isn't working try plan "B" (for Bible), you might get a better grade when your test in this world is over.