Message: In Acts 20 Paul was traveling, teaching and ministering all kinds of miracles. He learned that the Jews had plotted against him so he was advised to reroute his plans. He ended up in Troas where he spoke for seven days. On the last night he spoke until midnight and a young man fell asleep in a third story window and fell to his death. Paul ran down stairs, fell on him, embraced him and said “don’t be alarmed- his life is in him.” The way this is written implies that everything carried on like normal. They continued to talk and eat and they brought the boy home alive. From there Paul was headed to Jerusalem but he made a few stops and while in Ephesus he kept telling them that they would not see his face again. He talked about the dread he had because in every town he visited he heard from the Holy Spirit that suffering and affliction were waiting for him. Two things crossed my mind. The first thing was a reminder that when Paul was first saved the church dreaded him. He had done significant damage to the church so when God called Ananias to go heal Paul (formerly Saul) God told him that he would show Paul how much he would be required to suffer in his name. It seemed that this was actively taking place and Paul was feeling much of the same dread that the church had felt because of him. He was just as persistent in his pursuit of spreading the gospel as he had previously been in trying to destroy it. The other thing that crossed my mind was that Paul had performed a lot of miracles in the name of Jesus and had just defied death by raising a young man back to life. Now he was facing his own situation and didn’t seem to be able to see past it. He was telling the church that they wouldn’t see his face again as he seemed to anticipate his own death. As I thought about this another thing came to mind. Like Paul, we often have an easy time seeing the miracle in someone else’s situation but we can’t see it in our own. The important point is that regardless of how he felt about the situation, he didn’t run away from it. He ran straight for it fully accepting whatever it may be.
Relationship and Authority
Message: In Acts 19 there is so much going on that it was hard to zone in on one thought. Paul introduced some disciples to the Holy Spirit by filling in the gaps in their teaching and then baptizing them in the Holy Spirit. He continued to meet with them over two years and the Holy Spirit worked throug
Approach is Everything
Message: In Acts 18 Paul left Athens and went to Corinth where he met Aquila and Priscilla, a couple who ended up in Corinth after the Jews were ordered to leave Rome. The scriptures don’t go into detail about their beliefs about Jesus. It only tells us they were Jews. They were tentmakers by trade and so was Paul so they worked together. I guess this means we could call them “coworkers”. There is no detail about Paul teaching them or mentoring them. It just tells us that he worked as a tentmaker and when he wasn’t working he went to the synagogues to reason with the Jews. Paul always seemed to feel pulled towards the Jews first. He went through the scriptures and the prophesies to point out everything they had pointing to the Messiah, but when they refused to accept that Jesus was the Messiah he shook his robe and told them their blood was on their own heads and moved on to the gentiles. Something I often forget is that there were many God-fearing gentiles. They weren’t Jews so they weren’t part of God’s special chosen promised people, but they were following God. Paul always seemed to find those people first and bring clarity and order to what they knew. If they were Jews he pointed to Jesus as the Messiah, if they were gentiles he taught them about the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus and how it brought them in. He was reaching people by starting with the common ground and connecting the dots. I noticed that in chapter 17 he used this same approach with the stoics and philosophers in Greece. He started with the common ground “I see you are very religious” and he used that as a way to relate to them and open the conversation. Those people were idolators who were far from God but he didn’t come at them accusationally. He used it as an advantage. He even used one of the idols they had named the “unknown God” to tell them that he knew who that unknown God was. How clever of Paul! Because of this they listened to him for days as he explained who God is and what he had done. At the end of chapter 18 a Jewish man named Apollos rolled into town. He spoke clearly and eloquently about the gospel but he was missing the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He only knew of the baptism of John. Aquila and Priscilla took him into their home and laid it out clearly for Apollos. There is no mention of Paul being involved here at all and as I mentioned earlier, there is no mention that Paul taught them. The assumption is speculated that Paul probably had these conversations with them as they worked together on a daily basis making tents. This is what Paul did everywhere he went so as more people knew the clear truth of the gospel they began to teach others. This is what discipleship is all about and this is the example laid out before us. Find the common ground with people and build on that. I think we make this more difficult than it has to be or we approach people from a “you are wrong and let me tell you why” attitude. This does not win people it divides them. Paul in no way compromised the truth of the gospel. He told it like it was but he always began with a common ground and used that to build a bridge to the truth. As Christians we can learn a lot from Paul and ask God to show us how to approach people.
The Bereans
Message: In Acts 17 Paul and the gang continued their ministry by starting in the synagogues and reasoning with the Jews. He wrestled with scripture and showed them why Jesus was the promised Messiah, but this only stirred up the Jews further and they seemed to follow them into every city to cause trouble. Something changed when they went to Berea. When Paul went into the synagogues in Berea the Bereans were open to the gospel and they searched out the scriptures to see if what Paul was telling them was true. This is such a remarkable example to us all because we are human, and we have the capacity to be deceived. It’s so important that we take everything we hear and search the scriptures. Not the art of finding a single scripture that validates our already formed opinion, but the discipline of searching the word of God and praying for the Holy Spirit to lead us into truth.
Hidden Opportunities
Message: In Acts 16 Paul met Timothy. He had an excellent reputation but because his mother was Jewish and his father was Greek Paul circumcised him in order to bring him along to travel. This seems like a contradiction to the fact that they were literally travelling to tell the gentiles that they didn’t have to be circumcised. My own personal speculation about this is that Paul did it for the sake of acknowledging Timothy’s ethnicity as a Jew. Paul was very proud of his Jewish heritage. He came from a well-respected Jewish family of Pharisees and was highly educated and respected. His education meant that he had the entire Levitical Law memorized since he was a young child. Because of all this he often used his Jewish status as leverage when he preached to the Jews. He may have wanted to include Timothy in this way since he would be mentoring him. Paul’s usual approach was to show up in a town and begin his ministry by first speaking to the Jews in the synagogue and continuing on with those who were interested and willing to listen. This time around Paul said he was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak in Asia, then forbidden by the Spirit of Jesus to go to Bythinia so they went to Troas. That night he had a vision of a Macedonian man calling for help so they went to Macedonia. There was no synagogue in the town and ironically no Macedonian men to speak to either. When they met at the known place of prayer they instead found a group of women so they ministered to them and a prominent woman named Lydia opened her heart and her home to the gospel. This may have felt like a run-around, but I love that Paul listened to God and kept moving. I’ve pondered this many times because sometimes we feel like God is leading us in particular direction, but when we follow it turns out nothing like we would have expected. For many of us this is where doubt creeps in, but Paul was literally on a mission and he didn’t have time for doubt. He turned every situation he landed in as an opportunity for the gospel as long as he wasn’t forbidden by God. We learn more about Lydia in further chapters and books of the New Testament, but her salvation led to the beginning of a thriving church in Macedonia. If Paul was hung up on his vision showing him a Macedonian man, he might have missed out on this amazing opportunity. The sad and funny part is that when they continued on they met a slave girl who was a psychic. Paul got annoyed by the demonic spirit within her calling out every day so he cast out the spirit. This caused her slave master to lose his lucrative business of using her for fortune telling. The master was very angry at the loss of revenue so he stirred up the town and this landed Paul and Silas in jail. This may have appeared as another hiccup of defeat, but it was yet another opportunity! They sang in jail, the prison gates shook open and because of their testimony the jailer got saved! What really catches my attention through all of this is that most of us tend to sulk and get stuck when opposition hits our lives. We want to act persecuted when things don’t go our way or when people or government opposes us. Instead of fighting for our rights (remember Jesus gave up his rights) we need to use these as strategies and opportunities to share the gospel. If we are bitter, speaking negatively and complaining we won’t have a testimony to offer. People around us are paying attention and when they see us respond differently to opposition they will be willing to hear the truth of the gospel. We are currently in a pandemic in our world and we are in a messy election season. Times have changed and where it may feel like we are all oppressed victims to situations and rules, we need to ask ourselves what fight is important. How we respond to our surrounding circumstances determines who we are able to reach with the gospel. People need hope and truth and we will not be able to provide that if we are distracted by opinions about wearing masks and promoting our opinions about government candidates. This reading is a reminder to me that we have to stay on track and look for opportunities that are all around us.
Did God Change His Mind?
Message: In Acts 15 Paul and Barnabas were in Antioch and some men came from Judea and began teaching the new gentile believers that they couldn’t be saved unless they were circumcised. Since they were gentiles none of them had ever been circumcised because this was a Jewish command. This command had dated back to Abraham long before the law and it also usually included foreigners who lived in their camps and cities with them. This was the only way they were able to live among them without them becoming ceremonially unclean. Their argument was somewhat valid but it was missing something important. They no longer had to worry about being ceremonially unclean because the old way of sacrificing for each individual sin and trying to stay clean was replaced by the ultimate and permanent sacrifice- Jesus. Peter reminded them all that God had given him a vision showing him all of the unclean animals and telling him to kill and eat. He sent men to bring him to the home of a gentile and preach the gospel to them all and when he did they were all baptized in the Holy Spirit just like they had been. Peter reminded them that God saw them with no distinct difference than the Jews and because of the blood sacrifice of Jesus, the Jews no longer had to cleanse themselves and the gentiles were invited into the new covenant with none of the old requirements. This chapter is important to most of us as gentiles ourselves because we weren’t part of the old covenant, so people who try to subject us to the old rules of the law are just like the men who tried to make circumcision a requirement of salvation. It’s not that God changed his mind about what was right or wrong, and clean or unclean. Sin is still sin but the things that make us unclean have been made permanently clean once we surrender our lives to Jesus because of the blood sacrifice of he made. We don’t have to hide our faces from God in shame anymore. This doesn’t mean we do whatever we want- remember when we surrender our lives to Jesus we surrender our will and follow his. It means that we don’t have to run in circles trying to keep ourselves from being contaminated by our environment. The circumcision that used to be a physical sign to the Jews had become a new covenant where we instead circumcise our hearts to keep our hearts from becoming polluted and contaminated with sin.
How Quickly They Turn
Message: In Acts 14 Paul & Barnabas went to the town of Iconium after the Jews had stirred up trouble. Trouble followed them to Iconium so when they preached the Jews countered them and “poisoned their minds of the Gentiles against the brothers.” Paul & Barnabas continued preaching and when they did God moved in signs and wonders so great that the people thought they were gods. They called them Zeus and Hermes and began to worship them. They urged them not to and when Paul told them to turn from their sinful ways they turned on him, threw him out of the city and stoned him. What really got my attention here is that the people loved the signs and wonders. They considered them gods until they told them to turn from their sinful ways. Everyone wants the benefits and people will worship anything as long as they don’t have to sacrifice anything for it. This is not the gospel and this is not the God we serve. We have to be careful when we share the gospel that in our celebration of the good things of God we never promote a false narrative that supports the idea that God is a giver of gifts and promises without the sacrifice of self that he modeled for us. The beautiful thing is that in our sacrifice of “self” we begin to discover that what we gave up is not so great after all in comparison to the gifts we never even knew we wanted! There once were things in my life that I struggled to surrender before understanding what a gift it was to let those things go. The path of walking with Jesus has never been easy but it has been the biggest source of unexpected joy, peace and contentment that I have ever experienced. It truly sheds light on what Jesus meant when he said that he who loses his life for my sake will find it again.
Blindly Deceived
Message: In Acts 13 the Holy Spirit instructed the church to send out Paul & Barnabas so they fasted, prayed and laid hands on them to go. After sailing to Cyprus and ministering all over the island they came across a Jewish false prophet who was a sorcerer named Bar-Jesus. He was with an intelligent man of the proconsul who was trying to hear the gospel from Paul & Barnabas but the sorcerer opposed them as they preached the gospel and tried to interfere and turn the man from the proconsul away from the faith. Paul, being filled with the Holy Spirit said “You son of the devil full of deceit and all fraud- enemy of all righteousness, will you ever stop perverting the straight paths of the Lord?” He told the man that the Lord’s hand was against him and that he would be blind and would not see the sun for some time. He had to be led around because of his blindness. Oh the irony!! This is exactly what God did to Paul when he was Saul opposing the truth of the gospel. For both of these men their spiritual blindness came with a consequence of physical blindness in order for them to see the condition they were in. It also came with the humiliation of having to be led around. This not only insulted his dignity but it also marred his reputation because blindness implicated being cursed by God, and in this case he most certainly was! The story doesn’t tell us whether Bar-Jesus, the sorcerer ever repented and changed, but his blindness definitely caught the attention of the proconsul man and he was amazed by the teaching of the Lord. As I thought about this it occurred to me that God will be gracious to us and heal us in our spiritual blindness but Bar-Jesus was a false prophet, which means he falsified himself as a spiritual authority and used it to lead people away from the truth. Spiritual authorities carry a great responsible and are held accountable for leading people into deception. This man knew what he was doing so he was held accountable as if he was actually a prophet. There are many false prophets in the world leading people into false doctrine. This is dangerous for both them and the people they are leading but this is why it’s so vitally important that we know the word for ourselves and are able to recognize a counterfeit. The difference between Saul/Paul and Bar-Jesus is that when Saul had an encounter with Jesus he was healed.
Message: In Acts 13 the Holy Spirit instructed the church to send out Paul & Barnabas so they fasted, prayed and laid hands on them to go. After sailing to Cyprus and ministering all over the island they came across a Jewish false prophet who was a sorcerer named Bar-Jesus. He was with an intelligent man of the proconsul who was trying to hear the gospel from Paul & Barnabas but the sorcerer opposed them as they preached the gospel and tried to interfere and turn the man from the proconsul away from the faith. Paul, being filled with the Holy Spirit said “You son of the devil full of deceit and all fraud- enemy of all righteousness, will you ever stop perverting the straight paths of the Lord?” He told the man that the Lord’s hand was against him and that he would be blind and would not see the sun for some time. He had to be led around because of his blindness. Oh the irony!! This is exactly what God did to Paul when he was Saul opposing the truth of the gospel. For both of these men their spiritual blindness came with a consequence of physical blindness in order for them to see the condition they were in. It also came with the humiliation of having to be led around. This not only insulted his dignity but it also marred his reputation because blindness implicated being cursed by God, and in this case he most certainly was! The story doesn’t tell us whether Bar-Jesus, the sorcerer ever repented and changed, but his blindness definitely caught the attention of the proconsul man and he was amazed by the teaching of the Lord. As I thought about this it occurred to me that God will be gracious to us and heal us in our spiritual blindness but Bar-Jesus was a false prophet, which means he falsified himself as a spiritual authority and used it to lead people away from the truth. Spiritual authorities carry a great responsible and are held accountable for leading people into deception. This man knew what he was doing so he was held accountable as if he was actually a prophet. There are many false prophets in the world leading people into false doctrine. This is dangerous for both them and the people they are leading but this is why it’s so vitally important that we know the word for ourselves and are able to recognize a counterfeit. The difference between Saul/Paul and Bar-Jesus is that when Saul had an encounter with Jesus he was healed.
The Measuring Stick For Maturity
Thinking about this I looked back to raising my kids. We had a basic set of rules because although children are innocent in their understanding, they are born as tiny little narcissistic sociopaths. They want what they want when they want it and they don’t care what it costs to get it. They have to be given rules in order to learn, and they have to be taught things like empathy, patience and generosity. Some are easier to mold than others but the goal is to teach them to have a moral conscience not just when they’re with mom or dad but also when they are alone and under peer pressure.
The maturity level of a child begins with learning how to follow rules and usually starts with figuring out how close to the rules they can get without getting in trouble. They’re proud of riding the line so if you tell them to keep their hands to themselves in the back seat of the car what is the typical response? (I’m not touching you…)
We teach our children how to share, how to say they’re sorry and what kind of manners to have. They don’t start with the feelings or the understanding. It starts with simply learning to follow the rules and as maturity grows they begin to develop the heart behind them…(or not)
Ever see an immature adult? Yep, what’s the indicator? Selfishness. I know that this doesn’t sound like a giving message but hang with me. I promise I will tie this all together.
The law was designed to teach the Israelites the ways of God. It was intended to be a starting place that grew with maturity and taught them to depend on God -which sounds immature but is exactly what he planned for them and for us.
People who fail to mature are looking at the rules through the eyes of selfishness and we find loopholes and justifications instead of developing a changed heart. We see how close we can ride the line without being found guilty of sin. We’re grown adults acting like children (I’m not touching you!) Instead of asking “what can I do?” we ask “what can I get away with?” or “What’s in it for me?”
The tithe began in the Old Testament as 10%. This started before the law but became part of the law as the minimum standard. When Jesus fulfilled the law the Jews were freed from it much like we eventually outgrow the rules our parents held us to. The expectation is that our maturity takes us past the stage of being held to rules that once got us grounded (or swatted). Our maturity should have developed a deeper understanding for those rules and a higher standard. Compassion, obedience, generosity… The charge to the New Testament was to give generously because their generosity. The bible is full of promises and those promises are certainly for us but maturity takes us beyond the place of giving for the sake of a reward. Maturity brings us to a place of giving out of heart of joy and gratitude. All of us began as small children full of selfish desires but at some point we grew up and when we had our own children we matured in to adults and because of that maturity we give to our children with joy. We have all heard that children are a blessing but we’re not keeping tabs for a payback or making confessions of our future blessing because our heart to give to them is out of love and maturity. I would like to challenge all of us to look at our giving through the lens of maturity. Instead of asking “What’s in it for me?” Can we rise to a level of maturity in our giving?
2 Corinthians 9:11-13
11 You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
12 This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.
Freedom
Message: In Acts 12 persecution was bad. Herod had just had James executed and it was clearly a political move because when he saw this pleased the Jews he had Peter imprisoned and scheduled for execution as well. Peter was heavily guarded and the church was at a house fervently praying for him. The night before his execution was supposed to happen Peter was powerfully released and it was such a miracle that Peter himself thought he was experiencing it in a vision and the church didn’t believe it was really him when he came knocking on the door. A few things really caught my attention about this story. The first thing was understanding the severity of the situation. They didn’t just fear that Peter would be executed. James had just been executed and the reality was that Peter was being held deep in the prison with 4 squads of soldiers guarding him the night before he was scheduled to be executed. This was happening. What caught my attention about Peter’s release was the order of it all. The first thing that happened was that a bright light shined in the prison cell. Reading this made me think of all kinds of spiritual imprisonments. They say that the first step to recovery is acknowledging the problem. God shines a light on our situations before he delivers us. The next thing that happened was that the chains fell off Peter and the angel gave him instructions. Get up, get dressed, put on your sandals, follow me. Peter had to follow all of those instructions and when he did he was led out of the dark prison. As I thought about this, I realized that those prisons weren’t just a simple room with bars and an obvious way out. It was dark and there were tunnels and rooms to navigate through. The same is true of our spiritual imprisonments. On our own we would not be able to navigate through all of that without getting lost and probably discovered and put right back in prison. It was imperative that Peter follow all of the angel’s instructions. He got up, but he had to also get dressed, and his sandals were necessary for what he had to walk through but he also told him to wrap his cloak around him. This is so symbolic of our walk to freedom in our lives. We can’t just wait for it to happen to us. We have to follow the instructions to our freedom while God provides the miracle. This miracle was so incredible that the church who was fervently praying for Peter didn’t believe it was him knocking at the door. According to the footnotes in my bible the Jews commonly believed in guardian angels and often saw them shortly after the death of someone. They had truly expected Peter would be executed so when he showed up free they didn’t believe it even though they were praying for his freedom. This is one of the hardest parts about praying for someone who is spiritually imprisoned. After watching them self-destruct for so long your mind is programmed to expect certain behaviors. You are praying for the miracle but something deep inside fears getting your hopes up because the reality is so real. The miracle in this story was both the freedom of Peter and the freedom in the hearts of the church. They saw the reality changed in front of them and I can only imagine how this changed them forever.
Unqualified & Unreachable
Message: In Acts 11 word had gotten back to the Jews that Peter was eating unlawful food and eating with Gentiles. Peter was back in Jerusalem explaining the vision God had given him about the unclean animals being made clean. Then he told him about the men that came for him and how he went into the home of Gentile man and preached the gospel to a house full of gentiles. Then he told them that they were spontaneously baptized in the Holy Spirit just like they all had been. This changed everything and the Jews believed what Peter had told them. As I read through this I thought about what the Jews must have processed through this. They had been the only chosen people and they had followed the law all of these years. Suddenly everything they knew was being turned upside down. They went from judging Peter to believing him because they couldn’t deny the work of the Holy Spirit. The Jews saw the Gentiles as unreachable but they couldn’t deny the work of the Holy Spirit. I had to admit that there have been people I had seen as unqualified or unreachable suddenly have an encounter with Jesus that was so life-changing it couldn’t be ignored or denied. This made me wonder how many people I still see in this category. Who have I been holding back from sharing the gospel with because I have them somehow marked in the unreachable category. I can think of a few right now. My challenge today is to pray about an encounter in their lives and ask God to direct me in how to approach them.
Prepared
Message: In Acts 10 a man named Cornelius had a vision and so did Peter. The visions they each had were connected to each other and for each of them it required a step of faith. Peter was walking in new territory and God was showing him that the dietary law was no longer necessary and in fact it was no longer acceptable for him to call unclean what God had called clean. The dietary change was just the first step though. God was preparing Peter to enter the previously forbidden Gentile world and preach the gospel. God showed this to Peter in a vision first, and then confirmed it when Cornelius also had a vision and sent his men to the house where Peter was staying. As I read this I thought of all the times God has shown me something in my reading or prayer time and confirmed it shortly after in a situation. I want to be careful that I don’t imply that God changes doctrine, but that he prepares us for things. For me personally, some of the things God prepared me for in advance were not necessarily happy news. There have been times I knew God was preparing me for another battle to fight, but because I knew he was preparing me I was able to face the battle with the right state of mind. I think this was important for Peter. If God hadn’t prepared him in advance he wouldn’t have been able to process what God was asking him to do. He might not have cooperated when the men came for him and even if he did I wonder if he would have dared to enter the home of Cornelius to preach the gospel to all of the people Cornelius had gathered. Preparation is so important. Without it we will find ourselves caught off guard and unprepared for what God is trying to bring us to do. God doesn’t always give us visions like he did with Peter and Cornelius, but we have the advantage they didn’t have at that time. We have the word of God and when we read it with a prepared heart God can speak to us about literally anything. When we are receptive to what God speaks to us we can be better prepared for what God wants to lead us into. Right now I am personally seeking God for direction in some unknown areas. I know that the time I take spending with him is preparing me for what I don’t even know is ahead. It’s amazing looking back at all of the times this has happened. In 2016 I had been thanking God every morning that he knew everything I would encounter in my day before I even woke up. I prayed this every morning for literally months and one night I had a brain aneurysm burst and I found myself in the ICU with a brain bleed. As I lay there stunned by the news of my condition I had an incredible peace over me because I knew in my heart that God knew it would happen before I did and he had prepared me for that moment. It didn’t change my circumstance, but it changed my response- which is usually the most important part. I went through a difficult season of recovery and a terrible feeling of isolation and darkness, but even then, the time I spent with God before that had prepared me. I re-read things that God had shown me because I had written them down. Those words were like healing medicine and I don’t say this to brag about my preparedness. It was God who prepared me, but like Peter and Cornelius, I had to be in a place ready to receive it. This reminds me of the importance of breathing in everything God shows me in my devotional time. Sometimes I’m in a hurry to get out the door but I know that what I read and what I get out of the reading is preparation. It might not be for today, but the day will come when I will need these words and as long as I keep listening it will be there when I, or someone else I encounter needs it.
Loyally Blind
Message: In Acts 9 Saul was full throttle at destroying the church. He had papers in hand giving him permission to take any man or woman who was part of the church and imprison them. On his way through he was literally blinded and knocked off his horse in an encounter with Jesus where he had a vision. This story is well known but I couldn’t help but sit with the irony that God had to blind him in order to give him the vision. Saul really believed he was working for God and he was locked in and fully committed until God stopped him. He was highly educated in the Jewish law so his blindness was not due to a lack of knowledge or a lack of commitment. What was missing was the relationship and heart of God. When Saul had an encounter with Jesus it changed everything. We are all capable of walking like Saul if we are biblically educated but not connected to the heart of God. This is both humbling and sobering. It reminds me of the importance of keeping my heart soft before God as I read and learn.
Superficial Salvation
Message: In Acts 8 Saul who would later become Paul was fiercely persecuting the church. This persecution caused the believers to scatter but this didn’t slow the spread of the gospel. It actually promoted it. When the believers spread out into other lands to flee persecution they didn’t hide or shy away from sharing the gospel because it was more to them than a preference or belief. It was undisputable and life-altering truth. They believed it so much that they were willing to die speaking it, but they weren’t going to hand themselves over on a silver platter. There was a contrasting difference when a man named Simon heard the gospel. He was a sorcerer that heard the gospel and believed, but when he witnessed the miracles he fell back into his fascination for the supernatural and instead of respecting the God of the miracles, he hoped to pay for the ability. To him the power of the Holy Spirit was something he hoped to profit from even if it was just in admiration. Reading this I thought of the difference between believers who hear the gospel and make a decision to follow Jesus anywhere and everywhere as opposed to those who follow Jesus in the hopes that it will improve their lives. I see a lot of this kind of Christianity and it causes people to compartmentalize their lives and believe out of selfish gain and entitlement. The word is full of beautiful promises but those promises are not what our hearts are supposed to chase after. The point is not to seek out the reward. The point is to seek out the heart of God. The reward comes as an added benefit. The same was true of Simon seeking after the gift of the Holy Spirit. The gift was and is the added benefit of knowing Jesus, but it’s not what we are chasing after. When the focus of our relationship with Jesus is on the gifts, benefits and promises we are like someone who marries someone for their wealth or status. The motivations are selfish and the heart is not for the person they married. It is for their wealth and/or status. Someone who marries out of real love will prioritize the relationship and simply enjoy the accompanying benefits.
Obedience
Message: In 2 Samuel 6 King David was building and establishing his kingdom when he remembered the ark of the covenant and decided to bring it home to the City of David. David, with good intentions decided to bring it home so he brought the house of Israel and made it a celebratory event. They put the ark on a new cart and began the journey to transport it. David and the people were celebrating with songs and instruments but when the cart reached the threshing floor the oxen stumbled and a man named Uzziah reached out and took hold of it to steady it. God struck him dead right in that spot for his irreverence and David became both angry and fearful. He didn’t finish moving the ark for another 3 months. This story is always a difficult one to understand. Even David himself struggled with this so it’s not just a lack of understanding of the times. When I break this down the first thing I see is that the irreverent disobedience happened long before the oxen stumbled. Uzziah was in that position because of disobedience. When the ark was originally built and the ancestors transported it there were very specific instructions. The ark was transported by the Levites who were appointed priests and they carried it on poles. They moved it by God’s instructions and only at the sign God had appointed. If the cloud moved, they moved. If it stayed put they stayed in place and camped there as long as it took before God gave the sign to move again. The dishonor began with Saul after he became king. He became impatient when Samuel the prophet was delayed in coming to make the sacrifices and Saul went in his place because he wanted God’s favor in battle. It was further dishonored when it was later stolen by the Philistines because they saw the favor it brought to Israel and thought it would give them the same favor. What was intended to be a blessing and provide favor became a curse to them because it was not intended for them and they didn’t have the proper honor for what it represented. After suffering the destruction everywhere they moved it to they had enough fear and wisdom to send it back to Israel with offerings and sacrifices. It had been sitting there untouched since that day untouched. Although the intentions by David to move the ark were good, and he understood the power of the favor it represented, he didn’t respect the obedience required for that favor. This is what caught my attention the most. We want the favor and promises of God but are often unfaithful and irreverent about our obedience. We excuse our disobedience by saying that we are only human or “God knows my heart”. This does not replace obedience and this is what God requires above our good intentions.
Share the Load
Message: Acts chapter 6 shows us that the church exploded with growth to the point that there were complaints coming up among the Jews that their widows weren’t being financially cared for. As I processed through this it reminded me of the scripture in Proverbs about an empty stall having no poop to clean. I’m not comparing the widows to oxen and poop, but when things are healthy and thriving problems arise and more leadership and care is needed. When you have lots of kids you need more hands and more organization to care for the needs of the home. I love that these men didn’t minimize the problem, but they also didn’t divert their focus and stop their momentum of preaching the gospel. Instead they brought in godly men of character to take care of the financial needs so that the widows were well cared for and the gospel was still able to continue. Stephen was not just a financial or practical needs guy. He was full of the spirit and in fact so full that it irritated those who opposed and they eventually stoned him to death. We often hear “spiritual needs” and “practical needs” as separate things but I really don’t believe they are. I believe they are all encompassing and can’t be separated. This reminds me of the importance of having all hands on deck to accomplish all that needs to be done. As I relate this to my own life I can see where I have needed help delegating some of my home responsibilities to other family members to help carry the weight. I can’t be so bogged down with cooking, cleaning and managing that I crowd out my time for devotions and prayer, but I also can’t ignore the needs of the home either. For me this was a confirmation of the importance of order and sharing the load.
Fighting Against God
Message: In Acts 5 Peter & John were on trial once again for preaching, teaching and healing in the name of Jesus. It seemed the problem was not so much that people were healed, it was that they were continuing to give the credit to Jesus and remind them that they killed him but God raised him. One of my favorite parts about this was when a well respected Pharisee spoke up and cautioned them that if this was the work of man then it would be overthrown like the rest, but if it is God they wouldn’t be able to overthrow it and may find themselves fighting against God. Reading this I thought back to where they knowingly acknowledged that they couldn’t dispute what Peter & John were saying. This means in their hearts they were still fighting for their own way against God. This seems unfathomable, yet we do it all the time! We get our own plans and desires so prominently placed in our hearts that we will knowingly fight against God for our own way. We will even try to pray for our own way in the hopes to get God in agreement with us so this gives us the misguided assumption that we aren’t in fact fighting God. Today I challenge myself to examine the wants and desires in my life and see if I have placed myself in a losing battle against God.
Unmovable
Message: In Acts 4 Peter and John were confronted by the priests, the temple guards and the Sadducees because what they were teaching provoked them. The next day they stood before the high priest, priestly family, rulers, elders and scribes in Jerusalem to answer about the healing of the lame man. This was no small thing but Peter was no less bold than he was before. He clearly explained to them that this healing was done not by them but in the name of Jesus- the one they killed but God resurrected. What took me back about this the most is that the leadership agreed that this miracle was undeniable. They knew it to be so because the men standing before them were uneducated fishermen and wouldn’t have been able to concoct this or even speak with this kind of clarity on their own. Even though the leaders acknowledged all that Peter and John said to be true, they hung onto their positions and instead they tried to forbid the name of Jesus. It both amazes and amuses me that they thought they could stop God by trying to intimidate these men. These men could not be moved because this was beyond opinion and beyond feeling. They had seen and witnessed the power of God in such a real way that they couldn’t deny it, they couldn’t unsee it and they couldn’t tolerate hearing it twisted or spoken any other way. They knew what they knew beyond any intimidation. Thinking about this I realized why so many believers are on shaky ground and others are so solid. Those who have not experienced God in a life changing way may believe from an intellectual standpoint or by reasoning or opinions of other people. When facts and reasoning include an encounter with God it becomes personal and real. The only way to experience this is to spend time with Him and watch the word of God become an undeniable reality in our real lives. Peter was unmovable to because he KNEW Jesus.
A Hand Up
Message: In Acts 3 Peter and John were headed to the temple for the hour of prayer when they came across the lame man who always sat there begging for alms. The man reached for a hand-out and instead received a hand-up. Literally up to his feet. He was completely healed and whole. This caused quite a stirring and opened another opportunity for Peter to preach that this miracle came from the one they had killed but God had raised. He told them that they had done it out of ignorance but now needed to repent and follow Jesus. What really struck me the most out of this is that if they had just tossed the man some food or money everything would have carried on as usual. This was an every day occurrence. What was different about this was that the miracle was a life-changing one. His disability made it impossible for him to work or care for himself. There were no welfare or disability programs for this. You had to have a family taking care of you or you were doomed to die or live on the streets. It’s easy to look at this as a physical healing because it was, but it was so much deeper. Many of us are physically well but have other debilitating problems that keep us relying on other people in order to live or function. God wants to free us of our dependency so that we can live and move in freedom. This doesn’t take away the fact that this story happened in a real and physical way, but sometimes we feel we don’t relate to stories like these because our legs work and we aren’t begging on the streets. There are times I have been the lame man and there are times I have been like Peter in this story. Quite honestly there are more times I have just been the bystander. This story has provoked me to look deeper with people in my life who are emotionally hurting and struggling. Peter pulled this man to his feet when he didn’t previously have the ability. We can call people to emotional and spiritual healing also because that’s what Jesus did and he has called us to do what he did and more.
Supernatural Understanding
Message: In Acts 2 the disciples obediently sat in that upper room waiting for the promise. Jesus had ascended and the only promise they were thinking about was the promise that the Messiah would come and take back Jerusalem. They prayed together in unity and the Holy Spirit came in like a violent wind and they all spoke in other languages. This caught the attention of everyone in the city. Some sneered at it but something even bigger happened. Peter, who was hiding and lying about his association with Jesus just a few chapters ago spike boldly to the crowds of people. He reminded them of the prophecies that were known among the Jews and he pointed them to Jesus. Hearts were convicted and 3000 people were added to the faith that day. As I read this I couldn’t help but think about this drastic change in Peter. Peter was always the bold one. He said whatever came to his mind and that revealed what was driving him. On the mountaintop experience he revealed that Jesus was Christ the Messiah. Jesus confirmed and said that flesh and blood had not revealed this to him. This was something that could only be revealed by the Holy Spirit. A few chapters later Peter spoke and Jesus was rebuking Satan for his influence. Now we see Peter filled with the Holy Spirit but his boldness was different this time. He was speaking with clear understanding of who Jesus was. He quoted prophecies and pointed to what they were seeing. This was a revelation of understanding that they had not experienced before. When Jesus was speaking in parables they had struggled to understand them. Now the light was turned on and Peter understood like he had never understood before. This is what the Holy Spirit does. He is often associated with miracles and supernatural things but he is also described as the comforter and teacher. The Holy Spirit reveals things to the hearts of man that no words could possibly convey. Peter didn’t sit down and have a conversation or read a book to gain all of that understanding. He followed Jesus and the Holy Spirit took those experiences and revealed a new understanding to him. I think this part is important though because we often want the Holy Spirit to work like a short cut to drop wisdom and knowledge on us without doing our part. We gain supernatural understanding when we spend time with Jesus. Ther eis no getting around that, but as we spend time in the word the Holy Spirit gives us understanding.