A God Not to Be Ignored

6/6/25 Bible Thought (Acts 26)

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Most people don’t like living with questions.

We want answers. All of them. We want to understand why things happen the way they do. We want to know everything there is to know about God. I think there’s an inherent human drive to live without faith as we desire sight.

Yet, the Scripture teaches that, “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Heb. 11:6a).

To believe in a God that we cannot see requires faith. Yet even those with faith at times frequently limit their view of God to things that make sense to them. We don’t like questions.

In Acts 26, we see another of Paul’s trials, this time before King Agrippa.

During his hearing, Paul brought up the issue of resurrection. Truly, Paul was a Jew of Jews, a devout Pharisee who had his view of God overturned by a radical encounter with the risen Christ. The Jews who put Paul through this trial hadn’t put their trust in Jesus because to them all the pieces didn’t fit together, and it didn’t all make sense.

To this, in his defense before Agrippa, Paul brings out an amazing point, “Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?” (Acts 26:8).

In essence, he says, “Remember who we’re talking about here!”

For this is the same God who created everything out of nothing.

He spoke the entire universe filled with myriads of galaxies into being. He created all manner of amazing things, but not only did He create the inanimate, but the animate. God fashioned man out of the dust of the earth and, “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Gen. 2:7).

If this is the God we’re talking about, certainly a resurrection from the dead although unprecedented as an event is not unprecedented as a display of God’s power.

God’s been doing amazing things ever since the creation of the world! As one of Job’s friends once accurately concluded,

“[He] does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number” (Job 5:9).

If God could take dust and make it into a living person, then surely, He ought to be able to take one who was once living and resurrect them again unto life! Paul concluded that God does incredible things and this shouldn’t surprise us.

Now, a God this magnificent isn’t one to be ignored.

Paul’s life was entirely upended by his encounter with Christ. Suddenly he realized the God he claimed to serve he was actually opposing. His life was turned around, and his life’s mission became to turn others around too.

As the Lord Jesus told him on his new birthday, he was sent to the Gentiles,

“to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18).

The proper response given to Paul was for them to,

“repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance” (Acts 26:20; see also Matt. 3:8).

The God of Scripture is too great to be ignored and furthermore He has laid claims on our lives.

As C.S. Lewis would once say, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important."

God has desires for how people, created in His image, ought to live.

As our Maker, He has the authority to tell us right from wrong. Repentance, in simple terms, is coming to terms with what God says, a change of mind, and then acting on the change of mind with a change of action but it all begins with faith.