Response to Oppression

 We had a missionary guest with us over the weekend and he spoke on our response to oppression out of Acts chapter 4.  I was so pleased to hear him speak and wanted to think on again his 4 main points that out line our response to oppression.  

1. Submission

2. Provokes a Response to the message

3. Realize God is working behind the scenes

4. Create an opportunity to share

As I think about these things I realize that the more that I look back on my life, the more I realize that the times of greatest growth have come from times of difficulty.  It seems to be that when things are easy we do not grow as individuals and we do not grow as a church body.  It seems that through difficulty and trial we develop the endurance that James and Paul talk about will be a response to trials.  And through enduring we develop Christ-like character by the power of the Spirit of God.  And so when we face oppression we ought to realize what is really happening instead of simply responding in fear or panic!

Not even 1?

 Have you ever considered the truth of Scripture that there is no one who is righteous, not even one?  I mean that seems really absolute, and you should never ever speak in absolutes, right?  I find it humorous how often I over estimate my own ability to be good.  When I am good, I expect something in return.  So if I surprise my wife by cleaning or doing something above and beyond, I expect that she will do something kind for me - like make me brownies - I have "earned" brownie points.  So here is the question- was my "good deed" altruistic or did I do it to earn favor.  

I think that fundamentally all of us have ulterior motives revealed by how we feel when people do not respond in the way we think they ought to.  We say things like, "a simple thank you would be nice."  Or we say, "I am so under-appreciated."  We want people to take notice when we do good things and ignore when we do bad things.  We all have this ingrained in our inner being - to do things and expect the "proper" response.  Which means we are not doing them just for the sake of being good.  

There is no one who does what is truly right.  No one whose motives are pure, and no one who can stand before God and say, hey, "I have earned something here."  Not one of us.  

This means that we are all equal.  We all have fallen short of the glory of God and it really does not matter if I fall short by one meter or ten, the fall is still the same so the measurement is inconsequential.  And yet we spend so much time measuring ourselves to other people who have fallen short rather than praising God for offering us the righteousness of the One who did not fall short - Jesus. 

So today, praise God for Jesus - who gives us the righteousness we did not and could not possess on our own!