Did you know that "Alice in Wonderland" was published today in 1865?

Dun dun dun...

This chapter starts off in a pretty scary mood as Ananias and his wife, who lied to Peter about the cost of their land die at his feet. Pretty scary...just because they held some money back for themselves, they were "put to death". I'm not sure about how they died and what caused it because it didn't say that it was Peter or God that did that. But who knows...We're just lucky we don't get killed every time we lie or commit any other sin before the Lord.

Then, similar to what went on in chapter 2 occurred. Here, we see how much power and popularity that the apostles and this fairly new religion of Christianity gained after Jesus died. There were so many believers now that the officials could not even dare to punish the apostles and they couldn't even do anything about it when they escaped. It's too bad how people started believing and listening to the Message after Jesus died. Imagine what kind of a revolution it would have been if Jesus was still alive and thousands of people were following him daily. And it's interesting what this one Pharisee named Gamaliel says when he urged the high priest to let the apostles go: "Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourself fighting against God."

And what happened? The apostles went on and on, teaching in the name of Jesus. Nothing could stop them.

What I learned here is that when I go out there into the world to show God's grace, all my actions and words must be based on what God wants. Because Gamaliel was right: If you do anything in God's name and it is for his will, nothing can stop me.

"If God is for us, who can be against us?"


Roh