Shake it off

"3 But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. 4 So when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, 'No doubt this man is a murderer, whom though he has escaped the sea, yet justice does not allow to live.' 5 But he shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. 6 However, they were expecting that he would swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had looked for a long time and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds and said that  he was a god."                                         Acts 28: 3-6.  KKJV

Paul had been on his way to Rome when the ship was wrecked during a severe storm. Despite, Paul's warning about this, they had to run the ship aground on an island, and allow the raging sea to break it to pieces. The seamen didn't recognise that the island was Malta because they had come to the other side of the island, which they had never seen before.

It must have been difficult for the apostle Paul. He had been arrested for preaching the Gospel, sent on a ship to Rome, had been shipwrecked and now was on an island in the middle of the ocean. Just look at Paul's servant heart. He gathered wood for the fire. There were plenty of others who would no doubt have done this, but Paul volunteered. He had a heart after Jesus. 

As he gathered the wood and placed it on the fire, a viper - a vicious snake - latched itself onto Paul's hand. It would have been very scary if it had happened to us, don't you agree? But Paul, remained quiet, didn't scream or panic, just shook it off into the fire. The natives had watched all of this and made an assumption that he was a murderer and this was his payment. Therefore, they watched him, waiting for him to fall to the ground and die. Much to their shock, he didn't, he was perfectly ok. They therefore, called him a god.

Whenever, we are faced with the fire of God - a mighty awakening of the Holy Spirit, the snakes will come and attack. This is in the form of people who may be demonised and do all they can to stop God's work, by calling it fake, a work from satan, or whatever else. When this happens, we need to shake it off and go on. Don't let it stop you from fulfilling what God has given you to do.

People will criticise you and spread malicious lies around about you. Shake them off and move on. They're attacking God, not you and I wouldn't like to be in their shoes when God deals with them.

People may upset you, don't retaliate. It is so easy to get home and think over what someone has said to you and then text them with a mouth load of verbals. DON'T SEND THE TEXT! Wait until the morning when you're rested and have thought things through properly; then, shake it all off.

When you're on Kingdom business, you'll never please everybody, so stop trying. Please God instead and shake the others off.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard 

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com