Author: missionspaul

Scoring points

Acts 10:41
“He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen-by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”

God could have proved the point.
After the resurrection He could have gone to the wicked generation and showed them up, turned the tables, got His own back. “Listen you scoffers, you killed Jesus, but I raised Him, so take that!”
Do you ever feel like that at times?
Like you want to prove someone they were wrong?
You have that great conversation in your head and you win convincingly?!
Why didn’t God do this?
He had a plan and He stuck with it. The plan was in choosing witnesses, in those early Christians and also in you and me. That’s who He chose to reveal the resurrection to.
His plan wasn’t to convince those who wouldn’t believe but to eat/fellowship with those who would.
Perhaps we also shouldn’t try to get our own back or win the argument or prove we are right.
Perhaps our focus should be higher than this.
Perhaps we should focus more on fellowship and less on fights.
One thing for sure is that God’s plan and purpose is far more important than scoring points with opponents.

Death
Acts 10:40
“but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen.”

Most people of faith or no faith carry a cry in their heart that says, “There must be more than this.”
There must be more than the suffering I am going through.
There must be more than an allotted amount of years on this earth.
There must be more than being born, being alive, being dead and put in the ground.
We must be made for something else, somewhere else.
The majority carry a sense of eternity in their hearts.
Thee is another place.
It is because Jesus is the resurrection.

Handling bad news

Acts10:39
“We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree,”
Peter and many people were witnesses of the good that Jesus did. They saw and heard things, incredible things that they would never forget, spoken and done by this Jesus. Peter then with scant detail (like he purposely didn’t want to talk about it) says he was killed by being placed on a tree (or a trunk of wood which is what it means).
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Here we are seeing this question being needed in this reading today.

You may have at some point asked that same question and if not then in the future you will.

The important thing is not to be able to answer it but to be able to be still standing with faith, still witnessing of the power of Christ, post-bad news story.

You will look back on the bad news.
And when you do, you won’t be majoring on the event but in all the good of the story.
“He died, the disease took him. But I remember all the good that he did.”
“She suddenly died, we weren’t expecting it. But we are so thankful for her life, she touched so many.”

Honour the life above the death. There are many vultures around death trying to get the attention and the glory. But keep celebrating life, focus on the good, the bad only makes the good even more illuminating!

Jesus

Acts 10:38

“how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.”

We are in days when the understanding of the person of Jesus is becoming more and more important.
The offence of Christianity is centred on Jesus.
Christians are being killed because of Christ, they always have and they always will.
In every walk of life, every culture, every language, this one question eventually has to be answered: so who is Jesus?
Peter helps us today as we refresh ourselves, as we glory in Him, as we savour our Saviour, as we fall in love over and over again in Jesus.

He is anointed, a man just like us, but not like us, set apart in this earth by God.

He was anointed with the Holy Spirit, a strange phrase meaning that he is more than a man, He is the Son of Man, a strange title given to the awaited Messiah. Coming from heaven to earth as the redeemer of earth, this is Jesus.

He was anointed with power to do the supernatural, to do miracles of all kinds, impossible things, amazing works, outlandish huge blow-your-mind works that can only come from God.

Who did good. Wherever He went His focus was not to gain, not to be successful, not to impress, but to do good. To make people happy, peaceful, for them to live with purpose, to heal hurts as well as bodies.

Who healed those held in the power of the enemy, the possessed and the oppressed.

Who had God with him. When you saw him you saw God.

That is who Jesus was and who He is. That is the Jesus we proclaim and must continue do so. That is who people need to see. Let’s make Him clear to all today.

Happening

Acts 10:37
“You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached-”

How did they know?
They had heard of the work of Christ that was not confined to one area of Galilee but was widespread. People talked of that work, the gospel bearers witnessed to that work and these people knew. They knew of John preaching on repentance and his command for baptism in Galilee and throughout Judea.
But it’s not just the message that these people know about it. It is what has happened. The happenings of Jesus.
Christians have to do more than speak the message, they must live it out. They must make things happen. There must be more happenings. In our communities, in every culture, with the poor and the needy and the bruised and broken. Their needs to be happenings of love and kindness, happenings of healing and forgiveness. People remember what has happened more than the message. The church prays for miracles whilst Christ waits for the Church to go and create stories where miracles are born. Prayer without doing something related to the prayer is pointless.
The Church that prays faithfully for revival but then spends all of its time with Christians is the Church that will die.
The Church that believes in revival is a Church that spends all of its time in the valley of death making things happen.
Which Church do you want to belong to?
Christ had a message and Christ made things happen.
Peter was saying to this Italian family, “You know the message and you know what has happened.”
That’s the Church you want to belong to.
Let’s go and make something happen today!

The message

Acts 10:36
“You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.”

Everything is about the message.
We are people who know this message.
We have heard the message.
We know where the message came from.
Let us never forget this.
It’s not about anything else.
No matter how important.
If the message is not being given and received then there is no purpose for anything else.
The message: you know it.
But is the message correct?
After all there are 330 million gods in Hinduism alone!
Is the Christ message unique to that of the Hindu, the Muslim or the Buddhist?
The answer to that question is determined by how the message answers the following 4 big questions:
Where did I come from?
Why am I here?
How do I know right from wrong?
Where do I end up?
When those answers from those 4 religions are sat side by side then the Christian message that comes through Jesus stands above the other three.
Man strives for utopia, for nirvana, for moksha, to fulfil every word of the Koran, but they fail every time.
The Christian message is:
1. You become one with God through Jesus.
2. You are forgiven.
3. You keep your identity but Christ lives in you and through that identity making it new and real.
Read those magnificent statements again!
Let us fall in love with the message again today.

GOD is everywhere!

Acts 10: 35

“…but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.”

FROM EVERY NATION.
GOD is moving in the nations, in every nation of the world. God is all over His world. Today in this devotional blog I want you to read some statistics:

“A comprehensive demographic study of approx 200 countries finds that there are 2.18 billion Christians of all ages around the world, representing nearly a third of the estimated 2010 global population of 6.9 billion. Christians are also geographically widespread – so far-flung, in fact, that no single continent or region can indisputably claim to be the center of global Christianity.” pewforum.org

“Missionaries and Christian Workers: In the unevangelized world, there are 20,500 full-time Christian workers and 10,200 foreign missionaries. In the evangelized non-Christian world, there are 1.31 million full-time Christian workers. In the Christian world, there are 306,000 foreign missionaries to other Christian lands. Also, 4.19 million full-time Christian workers (95%) work within the Christian world.
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (2001)

Bible Distribution: Approximately 78.5 million Bibles are distributed globally per year.
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (2010)” Christianity.about.com

“Most of the unreached people groups are located geographically in what some scholars call The 10/40 Window from West Africa across Asia between 10 degrees latitude north of the equator to 40 degrees north. Total Population in 10/40: 4.5 billion people Total People Groups in 10/40: 8,717 people groups. Total UPG’s in 10/40: 5,874 Unreached People Groups totaling 2.75 billion people. 41.58% of all individuals 60% of unreached people groups live in countries closed to missionaries from North America. 1,047 of the unreached people groups are NOT in the 10/40 Window, these total 82,406,000 individuals.” Sources: joshuaproject.net

“A major Christian syndication has provided video evidence to us from their user data around the world which proves that a massive 350 million (!) Muslims live their outward lives as Muslims, on the surface, but have secretly converted to Christianity.The reason for this dramatic transformation in numbers is not due to the Church proselytising Muslims or trying to convince or force conversions. According to the most common Muslim testimonial to their conversion “Jesus appeared to them in dreams or visions” spontaneously and “showed them he was the real prophet”. Others reported miracles and answers to prayers to be the reason for their conversion, by what they claim to be “Jesus” having responded to them. This astonishing figure took us by complete surprise but it is real and have been confirmed by Arab Christian sources and figures. The Muslim population is now 2.08 billion people as of 2013 figures according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In addition to the mass conversion of Muslims in Islamic countries, other reports which have been official for a few years have confirmed that over 6 million Muslims in Africa convert to Christianity every single year. Over 3 million Christians are currently ‘missing’ from Syria in the past 3.5 years and are not included in refugee numbers indicating that they have been killed.” muslimstatistics.wordpress.com

All over the world the Spirit is moving!

From every nation!

No favourites

Acts 10: 34
“Then Peter began to speak: “I now realise how true it is that God does not show favouritism”

“I now realise”. I love these 3 words. It is a turnaround. It’s is rethinking. A change of mind and of heart too.
Leaders can be wrong! We can think strange things! Taken in by cultural understandings, we sometimes need to grow up in God and say ‘I was wrong’, ‘I now believe this …’
That’s all very well, but it is a lot more difficult when the belief that you are trying to turn against is held by the majority.
For most of the Jews of Peters day they believed that God actually hated the Gentiles and loved the Jews. Think about the following beliefs:
There were 3 things to be thankful for as a Jewish man, you were not a slave, a woman or a GENTILE.
Never help a GENTILE, not at all, no matter how small or how much of an emergency it was. The answer was NO.
Funerals were held for Jews who married GENTILES. They were dead people.

Yes, it ran deep!
Peter once believed all of that.

Interestingly, Peter was part of the discipleship team of Jesus and still he was prejudiced. How was that possible?! He had seen the love of Jesus to every person no matter Jew or Gentile. How could he hold such hate in his heart. But he did and it needed changing, that God has no favourites. He loves equally.
Maybe the answer can be had by asking the same question of those today who are in a discipleship team, who love and follow Jesus, but who look down on other people and condemn them because they are different to them. For example, U.S. Pastor Steven Anderson who after a nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida on June 12th 2016, where 49 gay people were killed actually unbelievably said on national tv, “The good news is that there are now 50 less paedophiles in this world.”
Yes it still exists this hatred towards others.
You might disagree with a person’s belief or behaviour but you are stupid to disagree with God’s love!
May there be many more, ‘I now realise’ moments!

Preparation

Acts 10:33
“So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”

Yesterday morning after the Church service, I turned to the Pastor and said, “your people are easy to preach to, when I go to churches I can always tell if they are used to coming ready to hear the Bible being preached, yours certainly are those people.”
I am in Estonia and I went to the church prepared and I met a people who had come to their church also prepared.

Cornelius was prepared and sent for Peter.
Peter was prepared by God and came.
The household of Cornelius was prepared ready to listen.
A preachers dream!
Preparation is everything.
Perhaps more churches can learn from this simple truth.

Joppa

Acts 10:32
“Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.”

There was a day in history when a man of God ran away to Joppa because he denied the call of God on his life. His name was Jonah and he didn’t make it to Joppa!
Here we are today and we are reminded of another man of God, Peter, again known as a denier, staying in Joppa after being used of God with the gospel and especially in the miraculous resurrection of Dorcas.
Jonah the Dove refused to go to the Ninevites with the gospel and headed to Joppa.
Simon the Rock was prejudiced against the Gentiles until God changed him and he left Joppa to go to the Italian family.
Jonah headed out to sea and hit the biggest storm of his life.
Simon stayed by the sea not realising God was about to tip his world upside down.
Which shows that though you may share similar experiences, you can change the story of your life. You don’t have to be swallowed by a fish to put you back on course, you can go to a beautiful place (the meaning of the name Joppa) for better reasons.