Posts Tagged "Acts"

It has a population larger than Russia, crammed into a territory smaller than Florida, and I knew nothing about it.

“God has made him both Lord AND Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified…” Acts 2:36b (emphasis mine). Sometimes we instinctively think of Jesus as Lord, ruler, Master, the One who calls the shots. We are comfortable with the idea that we are called to serve and obey Him, and our life is focused on doing our duty well. There is comfort in duty, in knowing exactly what is expected of us, in the feeling of accomplishment we get when we’ve been a good worker. The problem is, when we know Jesus only as Lord and not Christ as well, we are not living in the freedom and peace He has called us to. We are always on, always working, and are living as hirelings at best, and at worst even slaves… Sometimes we instinctively know Jesus as our Christ,...

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them” Acts 16:25 (ESV) Previously, we saw that for Paul, Silas, Peter and the other apostles in the New Testament, suffering is  not something to lament over, but rather to rejoice in, and that the reason for this response is found in a  dynamic relationship with the Living God.  Their lives are one of many evidences in Scripture that the deepest, most fulfilling, most real experience this world has to offer is actually not of this world at all, but rather beyond it, and that true joy and meaning are found only in when our spirit enters into communion with the Spirit of God.  We saw that because of this, any circumstance, “good” or “bad”, that...

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them” Acts 16:25 (ESV) I’m sitting at my kitchen table on a warm, humid summer morning.  The sky outside is mildly overcast with a light breeze, and I keep thinking I should turn the air conditioner down a notch because my hands are getting sweaty.  I haven’t eaten breakfast yet and I’m hungry, but I can’t stop typing.  You see, I flipped open my Bible to have some quiet time with the Lord, the passage it dropped open to was this one about Paul and Silas in prison singing to God, and it just spoke to me.  Deeply. They had been going about their everyday life, preaching the Gospel and helping others, when they were seized by their enemies,...