Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 56 · February 25
Counted Worthy
“And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.”
What has following Jesus really cost you this year? It might have been money, or your standing with people, or a room going quiet when you walked in.
Two kinds of people come to today's verse from opposite directions, and it says something different to each of them: "And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name."
The first person has never paid anything for their faith, and knows it. The apostles had just been beaten, and to this reader the verse sounds like an accusation: everyone in the Bible suffers and you do not, so your faith must be fake. Peter was one of the men in that room, and later he set a careful limit around this very idea. He wrote, "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye," and then he added, "But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters." He puts the busybody on the same list as the murderer. A good deal of what people call persecution is only what happens when a person is tiresome.
The second person is paying a price right now, and takes the verse as one more thing to fail at, because they do not feel glad. So be exact about what the verse says. The joy in it is no love of pain. The word that carries it is "counted." God had counted these men worthy to suffer for His name, and a court had treated them, in public and on the record, as men who belonged to Jesus. The shame was the proof that they were His.
Their joy did not make them reckless or dramatic either. The next verse is almost businesslike: "And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ." They simply went back to work.
Either way, remember that it is Jesus who counts you as His. Then take whichever half is honestly yours. If nothing has cost you anything, what would have to change about your week for that to begin? And if it is costing you now, you do not have to force a feeling. Hold on to the word "counted." The shame is the proof that you belong to Him, and He has not lost track of a single thing it has cost you.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 56 is Wholly Preserved (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).