Disturb Us Lord

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Scripture: Acts 16:19-22 (The Message)

When her owners saw that their lucrative little business was suddenly bankrupt, they went after Paul and Silas, roughed them up and dragged them into the market square. Then the police arrested them and pulled them into a court with the accusation, “These men are disturbing the peace—dangerous Jewish agitators subverting our Roman law and order.” By this time the crowd had turned into a restless mob out for blood.

Devotion:

            Today’s scripture comes from the book of Acts where Paul had just cast out a demon from a young slave girl in Philippi. It seems that Paul and his companions were busy causing trouble wherever they went. (see Acts 17:8, 19:23) The church today in America tries to keep a low profile. We keep our heads down and hope not to attract fire from the enemy. How should the church live in the world? Should we be trouble makers or peace makers or are we called to be both depending on the circumstances?

            A theme we see if we look at these three scripture passages is that Paul and his traveling band of evangelists never went out of their way to cause trouble. However, they were passionate about proclaiming Christ as Lord of all. Their passion got them into trouble. They were causing trouble because of who they were and whose they were.

            So, the church today should follow their example. We need not go looking for trouble because if we are really passionate about proclaiming Christ trouble will find us. The world, you see, does not want to be called out of their comfort zone to a life of service to any God except the idols of modern culture. There is no room in their lives for Jesus. They are blind to their sin. In fact, they no longer believe that there is any such thing as sin. Let us pray the dangerous prayer below. May the Lord make us bold and passionate about speaking up for our Savior Jesus Christ.

Prayer:

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity, and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas, where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizon of our hopes; and to push back the future in strength, courage, hope, and love. This we ask in the name of our Captain, who is Jesus Christ. Amen! *

*Groeschel, Craig. Dangerous Prayers (pp. 157-158). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

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