Author: missionspaul

Witness
Acts 5: 29
“Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men!”

Speaking about Jesus to people is something that requires obedience. For our enemy will do all he can to silence our voice.
If we are silenced we are being disobedient.
If you are in that place of wondering whether you should step out, maybe even cross borders to tell people about Jesus and you wonder if God wants you to do it. Let me help you. He does.
When was the last time you told someone about Jesus?
Members of the Christian family across the world are obeying God in their testimony even though they live in nations where the law says it is illegal. They face this dilemma everyday. Should we obey the law or obey God. They choose obedience to God. One day in eternity they will ask us how we coped in obeying God not man. What will we say? We have no excuse. We live without such restrictions. So let’s join them and replicate Peter and the apostles and today be a witness to Jesus Christ.

Blood
Acts 5:28
“We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”

These are the very same people who sentenced Jesus to the cross. They accused him of blasphemy and condemned him in a mock trial. They were indeed guilty of his blood.
However isn’t it wonderful that these enemies of Jesus and the early church believed that Jerusalem was filled with their teaching on the blood of Jesus?!!
May our homes, towns and cities be filled in such a way.
May many know of the sacrificial death of Jesus for man’s salvation.
The enemy of our life does not want to hear of this.
Our enemy is afraid of the power of the blood of Jesus.
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus Name.

Your life is built on the saving, cleansing, redeeming, justifying, reconciling, eternal, sanctifying, overcoming power of the blood of Jesus! Let’s fill our Jerusalem with that message today!

Facing the big man
Acts 5: 27

“Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest.”

You are in a move of the Holy Spirit, things are taking place, real definite non-flaky stuff. Healings, salvations and very strange things that would clearly indicate that God was within the Church doing very powerful things.
Then you are brought before the rule book and the group that forcibly carry out the rule book, the Sanhedrin.
Seventy people plus the High Priest formed this group. This is a large formidable group to face its scrutiny.
They had the last word. You didn’t have it.
Within the group there were people called the Pharisees, they were incredibly popular with the people and this gave them further confidence bordering on the arrogance.
They met in what has been described as a great basilica near the temple.
Everything about this experience was nerve-wracking.
Rules are meant to control and bring into line.
There are times when the Holy Spirit breaks every rule of man.

You may be facing such threats today.
You may be facing the ruling bodies.
You may be going before a council who will determine your future.
Your life is in their hands.
You like these apostles are going to be questioned by the big man in charge, the high priest.
But hold on, you actually are serving the real High Priest, so do not fear, do not cower, Jesus is really the big man!

Ways
Acts 5: 26

“At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them.”

The enemy of your life does not only move with force and violence.
Be careful of the gentle alluring words.
Watch out for the empty promises of no harm shall befall you.
Be attentive to the friendliness and understanding of your situation.
Ways, steps, paths, roads are more important than we think.
Be careful who you have signed up to walk with.
Better to walk alone than with a manipulative friend.
Many have eyes solely on the destination that they miss the importance of the journey.

Look there they are.
Acts 5:25
Then someone came and said, “Look! The men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people.”

Look there they are!
Behold!
It doesn’t matter where you put them they still remain standing.
We silenced them but now they are teaching the people.
Their voice will never go to,sleep.

Puzzled
Acts 5: 24
“On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests were puzzled, wondering what would come of this.”

They were puzzled at the report. It was unexplainable. Magical. If this were true then what does this mean?
Oh that these kind of words would return in our generation.
Social media is full of rhetoric each day from the Church advertising to Christians in order to attract more, through words such as “Awesome, Incredibly anointed, fire falling, wind blowing, vision casting night!”
Oh that we may just read something of the sceptics, the unbelievers, the slanderers being silenced and not being able to understand what they have just witnessed and more importantly the ramifications of what they have just heard.
In 2009 radio DJ, Chris Moyes, on his morning show spoke of attending Kingsgate Community Church as “fascinating, it was amazing, people with their hands in the air, it was amazing, I’ve been in gigs with less atmosphere, I’ve never seen anything like it …”
Maybe the Church should stop reporting clearly to the Christian world on how the Church performed and leave it to radio 1 DJs to express their puzzlement. It feels more healthy that way.

You should not be there.
Acts 5:23
“We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no-one inside.”

So there was nothing wrong with the locks.
Security was impenetrable.
Along with that there were those keeping guard.
They were neither asleep or absent from their post.
We are describing how impossible it was to break in or break out.
We are not sure whether someone broke in or whether the prisoners broke out.
We cannot explain it.

Those who have stood guard over prisons of darkness have often found themselves unable to explain the unexplainable.
Think of the garden tomb.
The fact is that we must keep the unexplainable within our faith.
Not that it becomes the norm. But to know that there are times in our life when we have to say “that was God, I cannot explain it, I came through what I thought I would never do and it had to be God.” But even more so when others say it about you. When they look at you and say ‘You shouldn’t be there, you should be here! How did you get there?’
Do you know that experience? Think of it now and thank Him again.

We are not there
Acts 5:22
“But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported”

We are not in the jail.
We were there but not anymore.
We are not in the darkness.
We are not prisoners anymore.
We are not in the dungeons of despair.
We were chained, lock and key, to the thick walls of banishment.
But you won’t find us there anymore.
We are not there, we are here.
We were in and we couldn’t get out.
But God made a way.
He opened the door.
If we live we walk with Christ.
If we die we live with Christ.
So go to the jail.
Examine those shackles.
We were dead and buried.
But we are now alive forevermore!

Daybreak
Acts 5:21
“At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.
When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin-the full assembly of the elders of Israel-and sent to the jail for the apostles.”

You may be imprisoned in the night but walking free at dawn.
You can be trapped by the darkness but at daybreak you can be rising again.
Today the dawn will rise on many.
The dawn of resurrection!
The dawn of realisation!
The dawn of redemption!

If you are still here on earth during the daybreak then you had better remember what was said to you in the night time.
Some make promises during the night but then forget their commitment at daybreak.

Daybreak signals activity not apathy. Some go through the day behaving like it is the night. Daybreak is for waking up to work.
Daybreak is for serving. Daybreak is for speaking out again the message of Jesus Christ.

May the dawn rise upon you today!

Speak
Acts 5:20
“Go, stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell the people the full message of this new life.”

Go and tell. That was the Angels message.
It is always the message from heaven.
I often find myself on the other side of a table with a para-church organisation wanted partnership.
A lot of the social justice organisations have a Go and Give approach. Social justice will open doors for you to be anywhere in the world and though the original intention may be for the gospel to be known, the fear of reprisals means that social justice has become the central vision of the organisation not in faith but in practice.
Go and Give is not what the Angel commanded.
Social justice needs the gospel.
Take the gospel away from social justice and then no one needs to be a Christian.
Go and Give reaches the poor, lifts burdens off the needy and can release the imprisoned. It is good.
But how will anyone hear unless someone speaks.