PASSAGE FOR THE DAY:
12 Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. 13 When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. (Acts 1:12-14, NIV)
………
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47, NIV)
………
23 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
“‘Why do the nations rage
and the
peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth rise up
and the
rulers band together
against the Lord
and against
his anointed one.’
27 Indeed
Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of
Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you
anointed. 28 They did what your
power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants
to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch
out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy
servant Jesus.”
31 After
they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they
were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
32 All the
believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their
possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles
continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was
so powerfully at work in them all 34 that
there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned
land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to
anyone who had need. (Acts 4:23-35, NIV)
REFLECTIONS:
Today is Ascension Day, the day the church traditionally
celebrates the ascension of Jesus. The Gospels and the Book of Acts tells us
that, after Jesus' resurrection, he continued to appear to the disciples over a
period of forty days, giving them many convincing proofs that he was alive. He
even ate with them on a number of occasions! During this forty day period, he taught
them many important truths about the kingdom of God. Then, on the fortieth day
after his resurrection, he led them to what is believed to be the Mount of
Olives, where he blessed them and he was "taken up into heaven" (Luke
24:51) and "a cloud hid him from their sight" (Acts 1:9). Last month,
I wrote a devotional on the importance and significance of the Ascension. If
you'd like, you can read it by clicking here.
………
Not long after Jesus' ascension, we find the disciples
forming new communities of faith based on fellowship, worship, and prayer.
Prayer is the centerpiece of communal life. It is also the most prominent
individual discipline. Repeatedly, we find Peter and John, then Barnabas, and
eventually Paul waiting for God in prayer and then exploding into action as
God's Spirit propels them into the world. Vigorous petition, profound
intercession, and pleas for guidance pour forth from the hearts of these early
disciples. And heaven answers: “After they prayed, the place
where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy
Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly” (Acts 4:31).
The early disciples were committed to meeting together, to
worshiping together, and to praying together. This devotion to one another and
to the things of God enabled them to experience a dynamic and intimate
fellowship among themselves—a level of intimacy that lead them to joyfully
sacrifice their own comforts for the good of those in need. We cannot help but
be astounded at the sacrificial lifestyle among the early church. I mean, they
"sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need." None
of them claimed ownership to any possessions, but "they shared everything
they had." Amazing! Apparently, the prayer life of the early church
enabled them to see themselves as conduits of God's love—as vessels designed to
share God's love and kindness with the world.
Not only that, but the early Christians apparently thought
of themselves as a single family. When you live together as a family under one
roof, you don't see this chair, this table, this jug of milk, this
loaf of bread, as "mine" rather than "yours." The
breadwinners in the household don't see the money they bring in as
"theirs" rather than belonging to the whole household. That's part of
what it means to be a family.
Their impulse was to see everything through the lens of
family. We are "family"! We are brothers and sisters! Our baptism,
our shared faith, our fellowship at "the bread breaking," all point
in this direction. When the disciples were traveling about with Jesus, they had
a common purse; various people contributed to it out of their resources; they
lived and operated as a single family. And even though they suddenly found
themselves with several thousand new family members, they were determined to
continue living with the family mindset. Not to do it would be to deny
something basic about who they were.
The early disciples had a word for this way of ordering
their life, a word which we have often taken to refer to feelings inside you
but which, for them, was primarily about what you do with your possessions when
you're part of this big, extended family. The word is "love," agape
in Greek. When Paul tells the Thessalonians that, since they already love one
another, they must do so more and more, he doesn't primarily mean that since
they already have warm feelings for one another, they must have even warmer
ones. He means that, since they already care practically for one another, they
must work hard at making that more and more of a reality (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12). This challenge remains before us even today.
When Jesus' followers live with an others-centered love and
devotion that delights to sacrifice and serve, they sometimes find, to their
surprise, that they have a new spring in their step. There is an
attractiveness, an energy about a life in which we stop clinging onto
everything we can get and start sharing it, giving it away, celebrating God's
generosity by being generous ourselves. And that attractiveness is one of the
things that draws people in. They were praising God, says Luke (Acts 2:47), and
stood in favor with all the people of Jerusalem; and, day by day, the Lord was
adding to their number of those who were being rescued. Of course they were,
and of course he did. That's how it works when God's people pray and worship
and love one another.
Where the church today finds itself stagnant, unattractive,
humdrum, and shrinking, it's time to read the passages we highlighted above.
It's time to get down on our knees and ask what isn't happening that should be
happening. The gospel hasn't changed. God's power hasn't diminished. People
still need rescuing. What are we going to do about it?
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO “HMMM…”
What do you think it would feel like to be so connected to
God that your petitions are his, that you have "become Word," as this
quote calls it?
"Prayer is the superabundance of
the heart. It is brim-full and running over with love and praise, as once it
was with Mary, when the Word took root in her body. So too, your heart breaks
out into a Magnificat. Now the Word has achieved its "glorious
course" (2 Thessalonians 3:1)—it has gone out from God, and has been sown
in the good soil of the heart. Having now has been chewed over and assimilated, it is regenerated in the heart, to the
praise of God. It has taken root in us and is now bearing its fruit: we in our
turn utter the Word and send it back to God. We become Word; we are
prayer." (Andre Louf, Teach Us to Pray)
I am Tres Sansom, and we recently had a strange experience with a swarm of bees at our home. Benjamin and I went into the backyard to water our vegetable garden and happened to notice a large "carpet" of bees on the ground. We called a beekeeper in Spicewood, and he came over to collect all the bees. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. We've had bees swarm around our house a number of times over the last couple of years, but nothing close to what we experienced on Tuesday.
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