Good morning, friends.
Our verse for today comes from Acts 5:21, “And when they heard this, they entered the temple early in the morning and taught. But the high priest and those with him came and called the council together, with all the elders of the children of Israel, and sent them to the prison to have them brought.”
We are smack dab in the middle of the salmon run season. What this means is that in the North Pacific and North Atlantic, for the next month or more, salmon will be migrating up the rivers to spawn. After having lived their adult lives in the ocean, these salmon somehow return to the same river, and even the very gravel bed on which they were hatched, to lay the eggs that will become the next generation of salmon. Some species travel almost a thousand miles and climb over 6,000 feet, navigating rapids, leaping up water falls, avoiding hungry bears, and ignoring the lures of fishermen to continue their life cycle. The drive to reach their destination is so powerful that many species will cease to eat while on the journey. This natural inclination is more than a pattern of behavior, or instinct. Rather, it is a part of the essence of the animal. That sense of natural compulsion, of expressing the very purpose for which it exists, can be found in each of us as well. In light of the actions played out by the apostles and their accusers, we see the two extremes to which our spirits can carry us.
In resistance to God and in defiance of His design, like the council and elders we are compelled to do that which is against Him and His purposes. Our selves are the center of our thoughts and actions as our heart is captive to sin, able only to produce the fruits of a lost and unregenerate spirit. But once we are redeemed by Christ, remade in His image, our compulsions are transformed according to the will of our heavenly Father. Our insistence now is to heed the voice of our new heart, to glorify the only One who is worthy of fame and adulation. It is only when we resist and fight against our new nature that we succumb to the trappings along our way. When we choose to deny the Holy Spirit within us, who directs us to be and do the very purposes for which we exist, we are being as unnatural as the salmon who refuses to swim upstream to the spawning beds. The apostles were freed from jail to go teach the saving message of Jesus that had just landed them in jail. Such was the season they remained in to the end, and such should be the direction in which we swim.
As we seek Him today, confess the areas where you fight against your redeemed spirit, and then heed His directives to gain victory and freedom.
Have a wonderful Thursday.
#4 Rich Holt
Dad of Ripken, Koy, TrishaJean, Samantha, Kakie Holiday and Raleigh
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.
