Today's encouragement comes from Acts 28:6, where these words are found:
"However, they were expecting that [Paul] would swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had looked for a long time and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god."Behold the amazing fickleness of religious man. In v. 4, the Maltese thought Paul was a murderer. Two verses later, they think he is a god. There is a les-son for us here: it is the weakness of the flesh to automatically run to wild ex-tremes, in the evaluation of people. The truth is that even the redeemed of the Lord operate in the "middle," "gray area," where our new nature in Christ is gaining the ascendency over our old nature in Adam.
Let us be wary of either exalting or demeaning God's people. Only Christ is 100% perfect in every way.
[Puritan quote of the day: "Zeal quickens the pursuit after glory. Zeal, encoun-tering difficulty, is emboldened by opposition and tramples upon danger.”
—Thomas Watson, in, "The Doctrine of Repentance"]
