I have been reading Luke 1. “With God, nothing shall be impossible.” Then I read Acts 12 where James was killed in prison, and then Peter was set free. God, with whom nothing is impossible, did not answer the prayers of those who loved James in the same way He answered the prayers of those who loved Peter. He could have done so, but He did not. “And blessed is he, who is not offended in Me.” These words seem to be written across Acts 12. John the Apostle must have wondered why the angel was not sent to James, or was at least tempted to wonder.
Again and again in Acts, the Lord Jesus seems to say those words under His breath, as it were– “blessed is he who is not offended in Me.” Let us turn all our puzzles and our temptations to wonder why, into opportunities to receive the blessing of the “unoffended.”
Think of this– Now all the grief of those days has been utterly forgotten by those who loved and prayed for James; they have all been together with James in the presence of the Lord now for 1900 years, and the one thing that matters now is how they lived through those days when their faith was tried to the uttermost.
So it will be with any who are longing to see the answer to their prayer for those who are in affliction [and for those who are themselves in affliction] or in any other adversity. In a few years– how few we do not know, but it will be few at most– we shall all be together in joy for eternity. So with us, too, all that matters is how we live through these days while we ourselves are trusted to trust. “Blessed is he who is not offended in Me.”
– Amy Carmichael
“Blessed is he who is not offended in me.” Who among us gets upset about how God is running His kingdom? This verse spiritually separates the men from the boys and the sheep from the goats. As Vance Havner paraphrases it, “Blessed is the one who is not dumb enough to get upset about how God is conducting His business and running HIs kingdom.” He knows what He is doing and why, even when we do not, and all we can do is trust God in the dark.
– Mack Tomlinson