With a Subtitle: Acts 7:6 and God’s Grace Through 400 Years
A brief Excerpt: Acts 7:6 reminds us that God sees every generation of suffering and never loses sight of His promises. This devotional calls believers to stop magnifying small inconveniences and to thank the Lord for His daily grace, mercy, and blessing.
Scripture
Our verse for today comes from Acts 7:6, “But God spoke in this way: that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land, and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them four hundred years.”
Background
A few years ago, the oldest living person was a Japanese woman who celebrated her 117th birthday in 2020. That would mean that Kane Tanaka was born in 1903. In fact, Kane was born more than eleven months before the Wright brothers successfully flew the first powered aircraft in Kitty Hawk, NC, and at her death in 2022, she was the only person on the planet who could claim that. A few months after her birth, the first Ford Model A car was sold, and later that fall, the first modern World Series was played between Pittsburgh and Boston. Also in 1903, the first box of Crayola crayons was made and cost five cents, containing eight colors. And Coca-Cola stopped using cocaine as an ingredient in its soft drink. All of that is from a long time ago but is still eons short of 400 years. It was four centuries ago that the first slaves from Africa arrived in Point Comfort, Virginia (unfortunately named for the slaves). Kidnapped in Angola and bound on a Portuguese ship, the ones who survived the journey and made it to the New World were first recaptured by a pirate ship off of Mexico before ultimately arriving at their new home on the ship White Lion. And so, twenty or so men and women began their lives of bondage and oppression, not all that dissimilar from the Hebrew people who served in bondage under the oppression of the Egyptians. But there was no Emancipation Proclamation issued by the nation’s leader to grant them their freedom as there was in the US, not even after 250 years of mistreatment. No, theirs would continue on for several more generations until an octogenarian named Moses arrived with a proclamation from on high.
Application
I woke up this morning in the worst possible way, somehow initially thinking that it was a weekend and I didn’t have to go to work. But to my chagrin, four more days of duty awaited. It’s that sort of short-sightedness that makes it difficult for me and others to appreciate 117 years, or 250 years, and especially 400 years. We have no concept of what it means to truly suffer (worst possible way?). And we should be grateful for our relative life of ease, so much so that we stop whining and bemoaning the miniscule inconveniences that occasionally pop up. It might be something undesirable, but the God of the Exodus and your salvation has still lavished you with His love and grace.
Charge
As we seek Him today, let your perspective include all the minutes and hours and days of blessings that God grants to you.
Salvation – Eternal Life in Less Than 150 Words
Distributed by – BCWorldview.org