Daily Devotional for Tuesday, May 23

Paul Looked at as a God

“And he shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm. Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds,
and said that he was a god,” Acts 28:5, 6.

A well-known 19th century precept states, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Men, when given positions of power, seem to become corrupt more often than they do not. Almost without fail, they fall prey to using their positions to advance their own desires and needs. Often the greatest need is simply the need for more and more power. For some, there is never enough power. Equally unsurprising is that even men of God can fall into this trap. Money, control, power and fame can all attack pastors and, in some cases, seem to prevail.
Paul could easily have been such a person. He was the greatest missionary in the world. He started churches, witnessed to kings and performed miracles. If anyone could have gotten full of themselves, Paul was the guy. In our devotional passage, he had just such an opportunity. By being miraculously made safe from a snakebite, the pagans present immediately started to worship Paul as a god. This was slightly humorous, because when the snake bit him they thought it was divine retribution, and when he did not suffer, they thought he was divine.
Paul never succumbed to the temptation to get an inflated ego, even when others though he was all that. Why was this? Because Paul always remembered what he was, and who he had been. He was the same as all of us. He was a sinner saved by grace and kept by the Holy Spirit. So are you. We should always remember that and we will never get too puffed up.

THOUGHT: When we begin to think too much of ourselves, all we need to do is remember where Jesus brought us from.

Wally Fry