Acts 23:23-35
English Standard Version (ESV)
23 Then he called two of the centurions and said,
“Get ready two hundred soldiers, with seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen
to go as far as Caesarea at the third hour of the night.[a] 24 Also provide mounts for Paul to ride and bring
him safely to (A)Felix (B)the governor.” 25 And he wrote a letter to this effect:
26 “Claudius Lysias, to (C)his Excellency the governor Felix, (D)greetings. 27 (E)This man was seized by the Jews and(F)was about to be killed by them (G)when I came upon them with the soldiers and rescued him, (H)having learned that he was a Roman citizen. 28 And (I)desiring to know the charge for which they were accusing him, I brought
him down to their council. 29 I found that he was being accused (J)about questions of their law, but (K)charged with nothing deserving death or imprisonment. 30 (L)And when it was disclosed to me (M)that there would be a plot against the man, I sent him to you at
once, (N)ordering his accusers also to state before you what they have
against him.”
31 So the soldiers, according to their
instructions, took Paul and brought him by night to Antipatris. 32 And
on the next day they returned to (O)the barracks, letting the horsemen go on with him. 33 When
they had come to Caesarea and delivered the letter to the governor, they
presented Paul also before him. 34 On reading the letter, he asked what (P)province he was from. And when he learned (Q)that he was from Cilicia, 35 he
said, “I will give you a hearing (R)when your accusers arrive.” And he commanded him to be guarded in
Herod's (S)praetorium.
To be a Roman citizen brought
about a lot of clout! Because of Paul’s citizenship
he was given a police escort beyond none other.
You would have thought Paul was royalty!
But stop, wait, he was royalty, not because of his Roman citizenship but
because he was the child of the King of kings and Lord of lords.
This story is a clear example of
how our King takes care of His own. We
never know how He is guarding us throughout our daily lives. We don’t always realize how He has given us
access to the King’s palace. Yesterday I
wrote about how God has our backs just as he had Paul’s back. Today we see an example of how God protected
Paul and how he was treated because of his Roman citizenship. But again, I have to think that it really
wasn’t the Roman citizenship that protected him but that it was his citizenship
in Heaven that protected him.
Yesterday my husband was around a
gas leak that had been leaking for two months.
As the men were investigating where the leak was there was a back flash
that could have caused an explosion and my husband was furthest in the
building. Two men, one being my husband,
could have been killed in that building but God protected him. Every day we travel in this life and
sometimes we have a clear example of His protection and sometimes we do
not. Sometimes, like in the case of the
most recent bombings God allows people to be taken from this earth or injured
in ways that will be life changing. You
may wonder at those times, where God’s protection is. Well, when those things happen there is only
one place to look for the answer and that is to the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Although He could have called
the angels to come down and save Him, He chose to suffer and die for us and
even more to do so for the Glory of the Father God. When we think that God is not protecting us
that is when He may be protecting us the most.
Seek Him and know that He is
there no matter what the situation, if you have given your life to Him, you are
a citizen of Heaven which is far greater than the citizen of Rome or any other
place on this earth.
Seeking Him with all my heart,
Sheila
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