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A Daily
Devotional
About true and false
godliness…
Acts 16:16 Once when we
were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit
by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her
owners by fortune-telling. 17 This girl followed Paul and the rest of us,
shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you
the way to be saved." 18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul
became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, "In the
name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" At that moment the
spirit left her. (NIV)
In this
verse, a demon possessed girl proclaims the gospel. A lot of strange and weird
things happen in the world and in our life. What appears to be good behavior is not
always godly behavior. What appears to be godly may not always be from God. Evil has a
way of twisting and using the truth to deceive us. Evil has a way of twisting
and using the truth to evil's advantage and to our disadvantage. Regardless of
how things appear, the point is this…evil stands no chance against God. Evil
has no power against God. In the time between the slave girl's first encounter
with Paul and her eventual freedom from the evil spirit, she spoke the truth
about Paul, Silas, and the message they were telling the world. However, Satan
and his evil spirits never have a godly intent. In living our life, we must
always be careful and discern what is good from what is not good. Satan and evil
have a way of hiding and camouflaging what they do. Evil can try and hide within
what is good and beautiful. Evil can try to convince us what is truly ugly and
awful is truly beautiful and wonderful. However, when we continually rest all of
our life in the heart of God, we can see the difference between His beauty and
the beauty of the world. We can see the difference between His wonders and the
wonders of the world. |
