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 natives thought Paul was a murderer. Two verses later, they think he is a god. Sin-ners run to extremes; and the people of God need not ever be too concerned about the opinions others have of us. The truth is that even the elect/re-deemed church lives in the "middle," "gray area," where our new natures in Christ are still overcoming our old natures in Adam.
Let us be wary of either exalting or demeaning God's atoned-for children. Only Christ is 100% perfect in every way.
[Puritan quote of the day: "Zeal quickens the pursuit after glory. Zeal, en-countering difficulty, is emboldened by opposition and tramples upon dan-ger.” —Thomas Watson, in, "The Doctrine of Repentance"]
