Author: missionspaul

Do it well in the time you have

Acts 19:8 “For three months Paul went to the Jewish meeting place and talked bravely with the people about God’s kingdom.”

Three months.

Consistent.

Courageous.

Clarity.

For 3 months. This would indicate something happened that stopped this. Yes but that is for tomorrow. For today we don’t know that. We just know that Paul was doing his work throughout that period.

You don’t know what tomorrow might bring but today you can do what you should do, you should do the will of God for your life and do it well and with all your ability. It may last 3 months or 3 years or 3 days but you continue until you know you should not anymore.

You are in your 3 month season, so do life well.

12 – it’s a new day

Acts 19:7 There were about twelve men in all.

The first group of believers that Paul meets as he enters Ephesus are brought into a fuller revelation and experience of God. They are baptised in water, then Paul lays his hands on them and they receive the Holy Spirit and begin to speak in tongues and prophesy.

Luke takes time to include the number of men Paul was dealing with. ‘About 12’.

I am not sure how you cannot count accurately 12 men. Apparently the earlier translations don’t have the ‘about’ they just say 12. I am content with the verse as it is, the point being the number 12. Luke could have said ‘about 10’ or a small group. But he wants to tell us there was around 12, he wants us to think about 12.

We know of course that God began with the 12 tribes of Israel.

We know that Jesus began with 12 disciples.

That is the point I think.

Paul began his work in Ephesus with 12 believers who were subsequently baptised and then filled with the Spirit.

A Spirit-move heralds a new beginning.

And today you can begin again.

You may not have much, it may look small and insignificant, but you can begin again. You can take some small steps forward. It is time to recognise you are called and chosen. You don’t need to look around, He is looking at you. This is your moment for a new chapter. There may be failure in your past, you may feel a failure, but today is a new day. It is the day for the 12. Well, about 12, because this is not about perfection, it is about a new beginning. You can do it.

 

Come Holy Spirit …

Acts 19: 6 “When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.”

Come Holy Spirit. Three simple words of invitation that Luke doesn’t say Paul actually prayed. Yet what he did and what the Ephesian disciples did would indicate this was very much in their hearts.

When Paul placed his hands on them, when he desired for them to receive, when he demonstrated that desire, when he asked …

… The Holy Spirit came on them, He was not there and then He was, He was unmistakable, there was no question who was here, it was Him, the same Pentecost Spirit and when He came …

… They acted, they opened their mouths and spoke, it was a language not known or learned and not clear and they immediately spoke words from God that were clear that brought strength and purpose and understanding.

The Holy Spirit is central. Coming through desire and being seen through the partnership of believers.

It is still the same today.

Desire and partnership: Let us want Him. Then let us work with Him.

Belief and action: Let us believe He will come. Then let us open our mouths to speak.

Request and response: Let us show Him. Then let us demonstrate He is here.

Come Holy Spirit …

 

Identity of Jesus

Acts 19:5 On hearing this, they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Baptism is a word that was used to dye clothes. As clothes were baptised they were changed.

The practice of Christian baptism is to show that our identity has been changed because we have been submerged into the person of Jesus.

When people are with you, do they see Jesus? I mean do they see THE Jesus, for who He is and not what we have made him?

Jesus came to die.

The church that does not die is the church that does not look like Jesus.

The church wants to live. God wants the church to die. And by death I mean surrender, laying our agenda and our wants down. It means becoming so unselfish that life is not about us. It is to live so that at the centre of our lives it is not what we feel but about the other person. It is to hold on to the faith and the practice of discipleship even when it is difficult.

This last week I received reports of the growing persecution of Christians in Eritrea. Officials are seeking out Christians and taking them to a concentration camp. 175 people have been arrested and taken there. Christians are in hiding in the city, wondering if they will be taken next.

Throughout history it always has been like this.

Maria Skobtsova began her early life as an atheist then a catholic and then by a fresh look at the humanity of Christ became a Christian.

Her and her father helped many Jews escape the occupation. On Easter Sunday 1945 at the Ravensbruck concentration camp she took the place of a Jewish woman who was going to the gas chamber, one day before the Red Cross liberated the camp. She spoke these words as she went, “Lord, I am your messenger. Throw me like a blazing torch into the night.”

Richard Wurmbrand spent 14 years in a communist Romanian prison “A man really believes not what he recites in a creed, but only the things he is ready to die for.”

“Come to Jesus and he will fix all your problems” is lightweight and simply not true.

When one is baptised into Jesus then they carry HIS identity and live for HIS cause, a purpose which needs devotion, focus and discipline.

You may thankfully today not be in some of the difficult places in the world. But in your difficult place today you can decide to lay your life down and surrender YOU to HIM so that others may see JESUS.

Stuck

Acts 19:4 Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.

 

John’s baptism was a preparation for what was to come.

It was a cleansing ritual for a much bigger and fuller cleansing experience.

It was a prophetic sign for the signs and wonders that would come.

It was a provisional mark for a permanent transformation of fire.

They had the preparation, ritual, prophecy, provisional, but they were stuck.

We still get ourselves, “stuck in a moment and we can’t get out of it” to quote a superb song.

Stuck in the past. Stuck in a moment. Stuck in a man’s ministry. Stuck in the hope that is not realised.

All dressed up but nowhere to go.

Fully prepared but not at the party.

Friends, this is not a dress rehearsal. JESUS HAS COME AND IS COMING AGAIN!

Recognise the past as being essential for the future. But the future of your past is this present moment. Today is the day of salvation. We are in the NOW moment. Untie yourselves. Detach the attachment. Run with full enthusiasm and passion. Become all that you can become!

Who are you overwhelmed by?

Acts 19:3  So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied.

 

The Jews had been using baptism as a cleansing ritual for some time. John the Baptist in his role as the forerunner to Christ adopted this as a means of preparation to receive the Messiah. It soon became known as ‘John’s baptism’ and he had gathered disciples who were obviously still around long after his death. The ones Paul encountered as he entered Ephesus had become disciples of Christ but had not received the Holy Spirit.

Theirs was a baptism of man.

• Submerged and overwhelmed by the ministry of man.

This is still available today. There are still well-intentioned John the Baptists today. They point to Jesus but their followers sometimes fall into the trap of pointing to them and not HIM.

Churches can be identified by such branding. “That’s a x church” describing perhaps its worship style or ministry/community approach. There’s nothing wrong with this obviously. But sometimes it all gets a bit much and we forget it is Jesus’ Church and the brand is man.

Promoters of Christian events in order to attract the crowds are faced with running out of superlatives to get the much needed ticket sales. Jesus is awesome, powerful and supernatural, it is good to remind ourselves of this.

Are you marked by man or by HIM?

These men were disciples of Christ but their identification was that of John. Paul was soon to make sure this was changed.

May we all be identified by the right person.

 

 

 

 

Is He here?

Acts 19:2 “There he found some disciples and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

Paul enters Ephesus and he stumbles across some Christ followers and the first thing he asked them was not about what they believed but what they have received.

He didn’t ask them about what was in their head but who was in their heart.

He didn’t ask them about the size of their church, what events were coming up, he didn’t ask them about the challenges they were facing. He didn’t ask whether they were changing Ephesus, he asked them whether the One was changing them.

Is He in you? Is He transforming, overwhelming and moving in you? Has the extraordinary invaded the ordinary? Has your strength been energised by His power? Is your life categorised by thinking, doing or have you learnt how to receive?

Today, He who is in you is not only greater than he that is in the world but also greater than what you do in the world. God in you. It is not what you know but who you know.

The answer cannot be ‘I do not know’. It is YES or NO.

Maybe approaching your day knowing that you have received God into your life, the fire of God, the life-changing, miraculous, guiding, resurrecting power of God is resident in your life, then maybe that is all you need to know.

 

 

Mountains

Acts 19:1 While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus.

The CEV translates ‘through the interior’ as ‘travelled across the hill country’. The Message says “Paul made his way down through the mountains”.

Whilst Apollos was taking on the Jews in vehement debate, Paul was walking the mountains.

A couple of days ago I received this text:

“Please pray for me as I am going to the mountain area today to see one young Buddhist man who has come to Christ and also I will be meeting others who came to Christ before. For me, like Jesus left 99 sheep and went to look for one sheep that went lost. I think one soul matters. I am going for this one soul, this is me and my passion of love for Christ and the people to be saved for Christ so I cannot wait and sit in this city without this happen. Daunting amount of emails and paper works in the office, my body don’t matter to me much compare to one soul that can be saved into the Kingdom of God, this matters the most. I am proud to be the ELIM missionary. Together for His Kingdom and glory. With love”

This missionary trekked for 12-13 hours up a mountain that was 4,000 feet high and he ate only frogs that he caught. He did all this because he wanted to encourage young Christians.

Paul trekked the mountains to reach Ephesus to find followers, to encourage the Church.

Sometimes life is a journey of mountains that you have to climb. Today may be that day. But you do it because God has called you onward. He has called you to something. Others are waiting for you.

We all need an Apollos and to be one at times!

Acts 18:28 “When he arrived, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. ²⁸ For he vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.”

It wasn’t that the believers in Achaia were not witnessing. They had told of Jesus. However, they were under attack from the Jews and the believers were no match for them.

Apollos stepped into their area of difficulty to do what they were struggling to do.

Apollos gave everything, he was not afraid to become angry and throw his whole weight behind what he was saying. With passion, and an attitude of ‘I am not backing down’ he knew he was right and he strained to make sure he was understood.

Apollos was not just using energy, he was able to prove that what was being said was wrong. He understood the opposition, he could analyse and reveal the errors.

Apollos confronted every opposing argument and then brought every accusation down. He was able to attack as much as the opponents. His tactic was not just defence.

Apollos could see behind the Jews arguments. The meaning of refute carries the ability to expose blame, he showed their true colours.

 

What kind of friend do you have? What kind of friend are you?

Acts 18: 27 When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. When he arrived, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed.

Priscilla and Aquila would no doubt have told him of their efforts and ongoing concerns for the church in Corinth. So it is no surprise that Apollos wants to go to that region of Corinth and Athens.

We know from Paul’s letters to Corinth the impact that Apollos had on the church. They loved Apollos and his ministry.

Apollos was added value. He was a ‘great help’ so that the Church advanced in understanding of God and their witness in the world.

That would never have happened without Priscilla and Aquila.

They didn’t interfere, they influenced for the good. They helped the situation they didn’t hinder it. Sometimes people meddle and they muddy the waters. We all need to be careful who we allow to speak into our lives. But we all need friends who:

1. Are able to give us correct information. Priscilla and Aquila had been in Corinth. It is without doubt they spoke to Apollos about their experiences. Their concerns were legitimate because it was first-hand. Their love for the people was genuine.
2. Are outside of the situation. The ‘brothers and sisters’ encouraged Apollos. These were his Ephesian friends as The Message and the Amplified indicate. Apollos didn’t rely only on those who knew the church in Corinth but also those who were not involved and didn’t know. Wisdom is sometimes found outside not from within.
3. Encourage. This is not to magnify the weakness in our lives, the doubts, the insecurities, but to strengthen those so that we can go forward. I don’t need a friend to tell me how difficult it may get, I already know this. I need a friend to tell me I can do it.
4. Can open a door for us. Leaving it to God and trusting Him in it all is at times necessary. But there are times when we need someone to open the door for us. “We are sending Apollos, he is a good man, please welcome him.” Apollos didn’t need to try and prove himself. He was able to go in with confidence because of what his friends had done.
5. Can bring change. We need friends who do more than recommend but who do what the Amplified and the Message state, “urge”. They present their case, they persuade, they answer the questions, defend, they put pressure on a person to change their mind about you.