You too can be transformed!!

In Acts 16:16 we find Paul and Silas traveling to a place of prayer when they came across a slave girl who was possessed by a spirit of divination, claiming to foretell future events and disclose hidden knowledge.   After days of being followed by this slave girl Paul finally had enough of her shouting and murmurings that he demanded the spirit leave her in the name of Jesus Christ, and so the spirit fled her at that very moment. 

Now, to us, well to me, this sounds like Paul did a good thing.  Paul freed her from living in sin and with a demonic spirit, but that is not how the owners of this slave girl felt. They were so enraged with Paul’s actions that they had him and Silas brought before the magistrates.  They found both of them guilty and the penalty was to be disrobed and then beaten with rods, shackled and thrown into the inner jail, or better known as the dungeon. 

While in there Paul and Silas, around Midnight were praying and singing songs to praise God, and the fellow inmates were listening.   Verse 26 Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the very foundations of the prison were shaken; and at once all the doors were opened and every one’s shackles were unfastened. (27) When the jailer, startled out of his sleep, saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was on the point of killing himself, because he supposed that the prisoners escaped. (28) But Paul shouted; Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!

How incredible is this!  And it gets better, but first things first.   So you are in jail, for healing a slave girl of her spirits, beaten, and then you are shackled.   What would most people do in this situation?  Do you think most people would be praising God and praying to Him?   

Probably not!

I think most people would be crying and wracking their brains trying to figure out how to get out of there, or what is going to happen to them.  They are not going to be praising God in a situation like that… BUT Paul and Silas did!!

In my head God saw their utter devotion to Him, and since we know there is no pit to far or deep for the arm of God to reach, He did exactly what He needed to do, He shook the ground beneath them.  He set them free; by breaking the shackles clear off of them.

This is a metaphor for our lives, and a very good song by Mary Mary, but if we praise God in the middle of an unfavorable situation we are showing God our devotion, and He must move.  He must make a way, whether it is by sending an Angel to set you free, or causing an earthquake to disturb the ground, He will set you free!   Remember He is our shepherd, and He will go looking for the one out of the 100 that is missing.

Now, as if this isn’t enough, you know God rattling the ground to set Paul and Silas free, here is the clincher, they didn’t leave!  They stayed put.   Why did they stay put, because God didn’t tell them to move.  Why didn’t God tell them to move, because He was getting ready to use this situation to bring a family home to Him?

In Acts 16:28 when we see that Paul yelled out to the jailer to stop him from killing himself, because no one had escaped, you know that had to change the heart of the jailer.  Here are these two men who were beaten, shackled and thrown in a dungeon for no real reason, and they are still there, when they could have run, and on top of that, they saved his life. 

Where do you go from here… that’s right, right into the arms of your loving Savior, and that’s exactly what happened.  In verse 30 it says And he brought them out (of the dungeon) and said, Men, what is it necessary for me to do that I may be saved?

God took the heart of a man, who just hours before was holding Paul and Silas prisoners for healing a slave girl, and set him free.  He is free to be a child of God.   The jailer and his household went on to accept Jesus and be baptized.  He also fed and bathed Paul and Silas.

Now, how is that for a transformation! 

God can take any situation you are in and turn it around for His good.  You would never have thought when you started reading these verses that the jailer would come out of it a believer and baptized in the Holy Spirit.  That’s not what our human minds expect the outcome to be, but you see we are not working within the confounds of our human minds, we are working with God.

God can do anything.  He is all things, He is the Alpha and the Omega, and He is light in the darkest of hearts.  He can take a catepillar and turn it into a beautiful Butterfly, so just imagine what He can do with you and me.

The jailer surrendered.  He reacted with a pure heart, after seeing what had happened around him, and the kindness of Paul.  His hardened heart had been softened towards God, and quickly he surrendered his life to Him.

Have you been trying to surrender your life to God and find it a little more difficult than the jailer did?  Yes, me too.   But the amazing thing is that catepillar didn’t turn into a butterfly overnight.  It took the catepillar some time to change, and become the magnificent creature we see floating through the air. 

Your path to God will come when you fully surrender and trust that He has you in His hands and protected.  Maybe you are like me, and it will take a little more coaxing, but we will get there, in the mean time we can be like Paul and Silas and praise His name where we are, glorify Him for blessing and loving us, exactly the way we are.