God Is Not Tame

Readings:
II Chronicles 8
Acts 19:1-22

Focus:
Acts 19:15b: "Jesus I recognize, Paul I know, but who are you?"

Paul's preaching of the gospel was having such success and making such an impression, that all kinds of people became interested in it. This included some "itinerant exorcists." These people had not truly become believers in Christ. Instead, they thought of the name of Jesus as another method they could use to cast out demons, and they gave it a try. Instead of working for them, it backfired on them.

God is not ours to use as we wish. As C.S. Lewis says of the lion Aslan, who is the Christ figure in the Narnia books, God is not tame. God is god, and he will be Lord and accomplish his own purposes, and it is we who must serve him, and not the other way around.

Happily, God is a loving god, and what he wants is our good, so that when we let him be Lord, our good is accomplished better than we could ever do it ourselves.