Category: Devotions

Hankies and aprons – our best efforts

Acts 19:12 “… even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to those who were ill, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.”

Paul didn’t touch the cloths for the purpose of healing. He didn’t pray over them and bless them. He didn’t send them out after an online payment. He didn’t teach others the art of the prayer cloth ministry. Paul didn’t have anything to do with the handkerchiefs and aprons. God did it.

God was moving in this Ephesian occultic culture.

God was verifying Paul’s preaching.

We are used to such phenomena in the New Testament. The woman caught the tassels of Jesus robe and received power to her sick body (Matthew 9:20-21). Peter’s shadow would heal people (Acts 5:15). So we are not surprised by Luke the doctor’s account.

So how did this happen?

God didn’t announce this was what He would do.

It must have started with someone inquisitive and brave enough to give it a go.

Perhaps this is easier if your culture is one of charms and magical weird happenings anyway.

Someone was so concerned for a sick loved one, whether in body or tormented in mind or spirit, they wondered if this would help.

Handkerchiefs were sweat rags used to wipe the face and aprons were work overalls that provided protection.

Did this someone visit Paul in his tent-making workshop and see the handkerchiefs of sweat from Paul’s brow and the discarded aprons on the floor and think I wonder if …?

Did this someone bring their own or the hankies and aprons of their sick loved one, with the intention of doing something that perhaps they had seen occultists try?

Luke doesn’t say and maybe that is not the important message.

I think perhaps this is:

The signs of the sweat of your brow, the pressure and strains of this world and even the efforts you have taken to protect your life only reveal that there are times when our bodies lay defeated. We are limited and powerless. But God is extraordinary. God can and does move into the area of our burnout strength and our used attempts at trying to preserve our lives in order to demonstrate His power.

Today, invite this powerful God of all gods, your God, into your brokenness where you cannot do anymore and see His power re-energise your body, mind and spirit.

Finally, perhaps you can think of this:

You may have many meagre attempted efforts lying around your life. God can use the ‘throw-aways’, the discards, the burnt-out ministries for His glory. Nothing will be wasted. He can and will use you again.

 

 

He does the extraordinary!

Acts 19:11 “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul”

He does not do the ordinary. He does the extraordinary through the ordinary.

He is not a human being (Numbers 23:19). He works through, in and for us humans.

Today you may be facing your greatest threat. A powerful enemy may have come against you.

But it is not what you are facing that is important but who that is in you that counts.

Think about who is in you today …

God who expresses His wrath every day (Psalm 7)

God who has set the moon and stars in place (Psalm 8)

God whose voice strikes with flashes of lightning (Psalm 29)

God who gathers the waters of the sea into jars (Psalm 33)

God who brings desolations on the earth (Psalm 46)

God who reigns over the nations (Psalm 47)

God whose chariots are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands (Psalm 68)

God who is incomparable (Psalm 89)

God who is from all eternity (Psalm 93)

God whose fire goes before him and consumes his foes on every side. (Psalm 97)

Psalm 68:35 You are awesome O God in your sanctuary; the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people.

He is a great and awesome God

Where is He? = In His Sanctuary

Where is He? – In His Church

Where is He? = In your life

“When I look at the night sky and see the work of Your fingers-the moon and the stars You have set in place-what are mortals that You should think of us, mere humans that You should care for us?” (Psalm 8:3, 4). “O Sovereign Lord! You have made the heavens and earth by Your great power. Nothing is too hard for You!” (Jeremiah 32:17).

What are you facing today? God does the extraordinary. He always has, from the outset. He didn’t just put a few stars in the sky. He did far more than that. He did the extraordinary! Using a very rough estimate of 10 trillion galaxies in the universe. Multiplying that by the Milky Way’s estimated 100 billion stars results in the extraordinary: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, or a “1” with 24 zeros after it. The God who is in you and with you today, did that! He did that extraordinary powerful thing!

What is difficult today? Nothing too difficult for God!

What are you facing? God will help you.

No need too great.

No problem too big or too small.

No enemy too powerful.

Nothing in us can constrain Him.

No task is too big for Him.

Nothing.

He extravagantly does the extraordinary.

 

Influence

 

Acts 19: 10 This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.

How was this possible?

For 2 years in one place, the lecture hall of Tyrannus, Paul presented the gospel. So how was it possible that the whole province of Asia heard the gospel?

It must have been because of the power of multiplication.

Ephesus was a place where many were passing through. And as they passed through in some way they came across the preacher in the Tyrannus hall. They engaged with his message, became convinced and moved on. As they moved on they went throughout the province of Asia.

The power of multiplication says this: you may be in one place, an ordinary place, but it can be a place of great influence and your work can expand in such a way that your effectiveness far outweighs your effort because other people naturally work for you whether consciously or sub-consciously.

But you have to begin one place first. You have to commit to that place. May today see you do your daily work with the same commitment for tomorrow your influence could have multiplied to a level you never thought possible.

Sometimes it is right to leave

Acts 19:8 “But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.”

It is okay to leave. Sometimes it is essential.

Those he tried to reach were obstinate, unmoveable in their positions.

They just would not believe.

In fact they rubbished the Christian movement.

It was hopeless. So Paul left them.

He had given it 3 months of his best work but then enough was enough.

He took people with him that he wanted.

He continued his ministry.

He found a new place.

Why stay around the unmoveable, those whose will was set against God’s and who refused to change?

You have a short life. Why hang around those who don’t want you? It is time to leave, to move on.

Sometimes things have to end. Groups need to be closed down. People need to be changed. Positions need to be wound down.

If you don’t let things die or if you don’t walk away then you will never be in the place for a new season and a new adventure with God. We all want a new outpouring from God but unless we move away from the politics and the religion then we will never be in the right place to receive what we want.

So take up the courage today and leave.

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.