God Thoughts February 14
Memorize: I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. Philemon 4,5
Read Acts 2:42-47* highlight the word fellowship.
We live in a time in history when things seem to change very quickly. Technology alone goes through changes at a staggering pace. A lot of it is a wonderful blessing. For example, if you suffered through cancer five or ten years ago, and someone is diagnosed with the same cancer today, it is very likely they will have options of treatment that did not exist when you had cancer. Medical breakthroughs happen more rapidly today than in even the past decade.
And communication is so different today. We are able to see and speak to people anywhere in the world. If you aren’t sure how to do that, just as a grade school child and they will show you. We can travel to any part of the globe today in relatively little time and with minimal risk. That is something very new in history. We have become “glocal” residents, meaning, living in one local area and yet having global impact and awareness. Yes much is changing.
And the church is not insulated from this reality. There is much anxiety, discussion, worry, wonderings and also excitement concerning what the church needs to be in today’s changing age. There are conferences to attend and books and articles to read and discussions to have to wrestle with what we as church are supposed to be and do in our own “local” settings.
In doing so it is always tempting to look back on the past and yearn for something that was, perhaps some golden age of this or that congregation or denomination. We might look back to the practices of the past and wonder if perhaps we need to model ourselves on what seemed to work well back then.
That is also one way that people read the Book of Acts: as a looking back to how it is supposed to be. So as we approach this passage, it is important to realize that Luke, who wrote this account under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is not trying to give us a picture of the good old days.
You know what the good old days are, right? Those are the days of long ago about which we have forgotten all the bad things. There really are no such “good old days.” There is only our selective memory or our creative story telling about the past. The Book of Acts is neither of these. Acts is not trying to say, “Remember what the church used to be and do?”
This is the Word of the Lord for the body of Christ in all times and all places. So it is easy to think that if we want to continue to thrive as a church, or to grow or be impactful, that all we have to do is do what the Christians did in Acts. In other words, it is easy to read this passage and say, “Here is the formula for success for a church!” And then we try to get each other to do what it says there.
Is this the good news of this passage? We would be saying, “Here are some more things for us to get busy with, and if we do this, we will solve all the problems of church life and be a success story.” However, what we read is not a formula for success. The account in Acts is not there for us to simply mimic, copy, or imitate. To view it that way assumes that what we read in Acts was an account of the pure church before history and change messed it up. It is to assume that to become a better church we should simply do what the ancients Christians did because they had it all correct.
Instead, Acts points to what God does in this world, both back then and today. This is about the impact of the work of Jesus in this world through His Body. So when we read such a summary of this work as we just read, it is not a blueprint of what plan of action we should take, but a look into the impact of the ongoing work of Christ by His Holy Spirit in this new community He is gathering.
And from that impact we can come to understand and trust more deeply what the Lord intends for us in our time and place. We can look at ourselves and ask the question, “What is the Lord doing right here?” We can be assured that Christ is at work, and that the impact, however it plays out in this time and place, resonates with the themes of the way it played out in Jerusalem among the Jewish Christians there.
So, this is not a formula for success; not a list of goals and action plans for us; but a formula for faithfulness. Another way to say this, is to ask, “What happens when the Spirit of the risen Jesus is at work?”
https://www.crcna.org/resources/church-resources/reading-sermons/church-acts-formula-success-or-faithfulness
Prayer: Father, open my heart toward others and toward you. Break down and melt within me the resistance that I erect against others. Make me to be of one heart and one mind with others in the body, generous in giving, glad to participate in anything that advances this marvelous work going on in the midst of a world which is rapidly drifting into darkness and emptiness and coldness. Thank you, Lord, for the warmth of your Spirit, and for your power and your grace among your people. Ray Stedman
Memorize: I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. Philemon 4,5
Read Acts 2:42-47* highlight the word fellowship.
We live in a time in history when things seem to change very quickly. Technology alone goes through changes at a staggering pace. A lot of it is a wonderful blessing. For example, if you suffered through cancer five or ten years ago, and someone is diagnosed with the same cancer today, it is very likely they will have options of treatment that did not exist when you had cancer. Medical breakthroughs happen more rapidly today than in even the past decade.
And communication is so different today. We are able to see and speak to people anywhere in the world. If you aren’t sure how to do that, just as a grade school child and they will show you. We can travel to any part of the globe today in relatively little time and with minimal risk. That is something very new in history. We have become “glocal” residents, meaning, living in one local area and yet having global impact and awareness. Yes much is changing.
And the church is not insulated from this reality. There is much anxiety, discussion, worry, wonderings and also excitement concerning what the church needs to be in today’s changing age. There are conferences to attend and books and articles to read and discussions to have to wrestle with what we as church are supposed to be and do in our own “local” settings.
In doing so it is always tempting to look back on the past and yearn for something that was, perhaps some golden age of this or that congregation or denomination. We might look back to the practices of the past and wonder if perhaps we need to model ourselves on what seemed to work well back then.
That is also one way that people read the Book of Acts: as a looking back to how it is supposed to be. So as we approach this passage, it is important to realize that Luke, who wrote this account under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is not trying to give us a picture of the good old days.
You know what the good old days are, right? Those are the days of long ago about which we have forgotten all the bad things. There really are no such “good old days.” There is only our selective memory or our creative story telling about the past. The Book of Acts is neither of these. Acts is not trying to say, “Remember what the church used to be and do?”
This is the Word of the Lord for the body of Christ in all times and all places. So it is easy to think that if we want to continue to thrive as a church, or to grow or be impactful, that all we have to do is do what the Christians did in Acts. In other words, it is easy to read this passage and say, “Here is the formula for success for a church!” And then we try to get each other to do what it says there.
Is this the good news of this passage? We would be saying, “Here are some more things for us to get busy with, and if we do this, we will solve all the problems of church life and be a success story.” However, what we read is not a formula for success. The account in Acts is not there for us to simply mimic, copy, or imitate. To view it that way assumes that what we read in Acts was an account of the pure church before history and change messed it up. It is to assume that to become a better church we should simply do what the ancients Christians did because they had it all correct.
Instead, Acts points to what God does in this world, both back then and today. This is about the impact of the work of Jesus in this world through His Body. So when we read such a summary of this work as we just read, it is not a blueprint of what plan of action we should take, but a look into the impact of the ongoing work of Christ by His Holy Spirit in this new community He is gathering.
And from that impact we can come to understand and trust more deeply what the Lord intends for us in our time and place. We can look at ourselves and ask the question, “What is the Lord doing right here?” We can be assured that Christ is at work, and that the impact, however it plays out in this time and place, resonates with the themes of the way it played out in Jerusalem among the Jewish Christians there.
So, this is not a formula for success; not a list of goals and action plans for us; but a formula for faithfulness. Another way to say this, is to ask, “What happens when the Spirit of the risen Jesus is at work?”
https://www.crcna.org/resources/church-resources/reading-sermons/church-acts-formula-success-or-faithfulness
Prayer: Father, open my heart toward others and toward you. Break down and melt within me the resistance that I erect against others. Make me to be of one heart and one mind with others in the body, generous in giving, glad to participate in anything that advances this marvelous work going on in the midst of a world which is rapidly drifting into darkness and emptiness and coldness. Thank you, Lord, for the warmth of your Spirit, and for your power and your grace among your people. Ray Stedman
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