Wednesday: Turning the World Upside Down
WEEK 26
WEDNESDAY
TURNING THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN
Acts 17:5-8
We noted yesterday Paul’s fourteen-point commission. Not one negative point in the fourteen—all positive. No wonder he was a positive person with a positive message and a positive result. He was alive with God and life and destiny, and he made persons and situations live. This is in deep contrast to the man of whom a GI inquired when he returned to his hometown after a long absence: “Is so-and-so alive yet?” And the inhabitant replied, “No, not yet.”
Paul was alive and positive, and everyone knew it. This impact was felt a few days after his conversion. “Right away, he began to preach about Jesus in the synagogues. ‘He is God’s Son,” he declared. . . . They were keeping watch at the city gates around the clock so they could assassinate him. But his disciples took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the city wall” (Acts 9:20, 24-25). He was a positive man and got positive results and got them immediately. He not only positively changed people; he did something more—he “turned the world upside down.” In his positive presentation of Jesus a revolution in thought and act and attitude was taking place. What were some of the positive ways the world was turned upside down?
The revolution was accomplished by seed thoughts, seed actions, and seed attitudes. Nothing is so powerful as a seed. Seeds of the peepul (or pipal) tree in India, falling into the cracks of a building, will leave the building in ruins. So Paul dropped seed thoughts into ancient structures, and they crumbled.
1. The Jesus that Paul preached reversed the method of revelation. Hitherto it was a verbal revelation—a book, a voice. Now it was a vital revelation—a Life, a Person.
2. Jesus reversed the method of salvation. Hitherto people were doing something for God; while in Jesus, God was doing something for people. Salvation was a gift.
3. Jesus reversed the method of inheriting the earth. Hitherto people tried to inherit it by conquest, by force; and here Jesus was teaching them to inherit it by meekness, by receptivity. The earth belongs to those who know how to inherit it by meekly learning its secrets and obeying its laws—the meek.
O Lord, our hearts are being turned upside down as we contemplate your Son. He reverses all our values; he reverses us. Help us to be a part of his revolution. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I belong to the Great Affirmative. I shall be affirmative in all my thoughts, attitudes, and actions.