“WE MUST OBEY GOD RATHER THAN MEN” (Acts 5:29)

⏰Thursday of the Second Week of Easter (12 April 2018)

📕Acts 5:27-33; Ps 34:2 and 9, 17-18, 19-20 (R.v.7a); John 3:31-36

When you are threatened by a force which seems to be beyond your strength especially at the exercise of your faith, what do you do?
👉At the office when the only option for appointment or promotion is to pay in cash or in kind;
👉When premarital sex is the only condition to get married;
👉When you are falsely accused of an evil act and the only way to prove your innocence is to swear before an oracle;
👉When speaking the truth is equivalent to death warrant.

It is in such situations that we can bear true and authentic witness to Christ as Peter and the other apostles did in Acts 5:27-33. God never abandons his own even in such situations;
👉He saved Joseph from the evil that Potiphar’s wife planned for him (Gen 39 – 41);
👉He saved Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from the fiery burning furnace (cf. Dan 3) and;
👉Neither did he abandon Daniel in the lion’s den (cf. Dan 6).
All these people trusted in God and chose to obey him rather than to obey man.

The strength to do that comes from above. It is an uncommon courage which no power on earth can give. Did you notice how that power transformed the once timid and local Peter into a famous orator? It will also transform you if you let him.

May God give you the strength to make a fundamental option for him and bear true witness to him even in the face of hopeless situations. And may he not abandon you in such tempting situations. Amen.

Have a faithful and victorious day ahead. Peace be with you.