Great Expectations

Go get your Bible I’ll wait….

Open it to Acts chapter 12. King Herod has just arrested some of the early Christians including James, the Apostle John’s brother. King Herod has James killed and arrest Peter with the same intent. Now it get very interesting…Peter is put into prison guarded by four squads of guards…four soldiers for each watch. So Peter is guard by four soldiers at all times. Herod is going to use Peter as the after Passover ‘entertainment’, by putting him on public trial.

Key verse….verse 5: “So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.”

I would think praying for him would involve praying for Peters release, that nothing would happen to him.

Here is the thought I have about all this…many times we pray in church without ‘expectations’…we pray for something and don’t expect it to happen…we lack faith. No don’t take that line of thought out to the fringe…the idea being through faith we can wield some kind of holy ‘force’ aka Star Wars. But I think many times we don’t expect God to hear us or answer us. Some with argue with me, but from my experience we don’t have ‘great expectations’ when it come to answered prayer.

So back to Peter….

v.6 he is sound to sleep the night before his trial and execution. He is sleeping so well the angel has to ‘strike’ him to wake him up. In that just woke fog, Peter stumbles out of the prison thinking he was dreaming…

v.11 Peter finally wakes up and realizes God had rescued him and he runs to place the church is praying. Here is where it is gets good…

v.13 Peter knocks on the door and the young lady named Rhoda comes to the door. She recognizes Peters voice and is so overwhelmed she forgets to open the door….and runs yelling “Peter is at the door”.

The group tells her, “You’re out of your mind”…

They didn’t believe Rhoda because they never expected Peter to be released. It wasn’t possible, James died and we prayed for him…Peter is going to die also. So they prayed with no expectations…

How many of us have a set back, God doesn’t answer our prayer about something and we lose all expectations.

Peters release by the angel would greatly encourage peter and the early church; it spurred them on to greater faith.

So the next time you have a set back in prayer…remember all the times God has answered your prayers and them pray with “Great Expectations”…God is Good!

-ps