Devotional Acts 12: Peter's Liberation and God's Power Devotional on Acts 12: Discover how God frees Peter from prison, thwarts the enemy's plans, and reveals the danger of self-glorification. Topics: Devotional, New Testament.

Devotional Acts 12: Peter’s Liberation and God’s Power

My devotional for today is in the book of Acts, chapter 12, and this is what happened.

Synopsis: In this chapter, three important events take place.

First, King Herod decides to persecute James (brother of John) and Peter, who were killed by the sword and imprisoned, respectively, to please the Jewish people, during the days of unleavened bread.

Second, Peter is freed by the Angel of the Lord from prison, which was being guarded by 4 squads of 4 guards, 2 sentinels, and an iron gate, and went to the house of Mary, mother of John (also known as Mark) to tell them how God freed him.

Third, King Herod left Jerusalem for Caesarea after the search for Peter and ended up meeting with the people of Sidon and Tyre, who no longer wanted disagreements with him, to reach an agreement. But just as he was going to them, the people shouted that this voice was not of a man but of God. At that exact moment, God struck him for not giving glory to God and King Herod died.

Observations

These were my observations.

1. The enemy will never stop trying to thwart God’s will. King Herod, envious and seeking to please the Jews, did the unthinkable and decided to persecute the apostles (more specifically, James and Peter). He was so obstinate in his persecution that he ordered James killed by the sword and Peter imprisoned. But he didn’t stop there; he decided to increase the prison security so considerably to ensure Peter would never escape. In other words, the enemy will not play with us when the goal is to stop God’s will. He will implement all the toughest and most effective tactics to achieve his goal. Therefore, it is up to us to be aware of this and continue depending on God (i.e., praying incessantly and observing His ordinances) so that we can win this battle.
2. God will never allow the enemy to stop His will. Although the enemy implements all his weapons against us to prevent God’s will from prevailing, God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, so the enemy will never win the battle against God. And we see this in this chapter in a supernatural way. For God sent one of His angels to free Peter from prison, which can be considered maximum security. Something that would be impossible by conventional methods (i.e., exclusively by human hands). Therefore, when we are going through persecution from the enemy, we must always remember that God is undefeated.
3. Self-glorification is a direct path to death.