Category: Devotions

Arrest is not to be feared

 

Acts 12:1

“It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them.”

 

This Herod is Herod Agrippa, he was the grandson of Herod the King and the nephew of Herod Tetrarch. Which goes to show that some evils remain within families. Herod the Great wanted to kill Jesus when he was born and Herod Tetrarch was instrumental in the handing of Jesus over for crucifixion.

It makes sense then that Herod Agrippa would follow suit and arrest some believers with the intention of persecution.

If it happened to Jesus it will happen to his followers.

We get alarmed about the rising tide of persecution and all that is happening to Christians.

On my mind is the capture of Jeff Woodke one week ago today in Abalak, Niger. This American YWAM missionary was abducted by Al-Qaeda and no one knows where he is. He has a wife and 2 adult children and we pray for him and them today.

But I could write a list of people who are suffering in similar situations.

I weep with these stories.

Yet let us remember what happened to Jesus.

It will happen to us. We will be arrested. We will be stopped and we will be persecuted. Well, ‘some’ of us.

And if Jesus’ capture and persecution and death wasn’t in vain and in fact brought a greater result because of his death then I truly believe that the capture, persecution and death of his followers will also result in the same powerful result.

Let the enemy arrest all that he wants but it will only serve a greater more powerful purpose. The enemy never wins. He is a defeated enemy.

He may ‘intend’ to persecute but that intention sits in the hand of God’s purpose. Purpose trumps intention every time!

 

 

 

Giving facts

 

Acts 11: 29

“The disciples, each according to his ability, decided to provide help for the brothers living in Judea.”

 

They gave in preparation of the famine predicted by Agabus.

The proof that they believed this was a message from God was that they raised an offering to help alleviate the suffering to come. Giving followed the message from God.

 

The disciples gave. Financial giving is part of following Jesus. It is discipleship.

 

No one gave the same amount. According to their ability didn’t mean that if they had it they gave it. Rather it was probably that they gave the same proportion, an agreed percentage resulting in different amounts depending on what each had.

 

They decided to give. Determined but not forced or coerced, they made a commitment to meet needs.

 

Come on you prophets.

Acts 11:27
“During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.”

We need the prophets. We don’t need more prophesying. But we do need the prophets. We don’t need more “Thus saieth the Lord” but we do need the messages from God.
What is God saying? A question that always needs to be asked.
I’m not so bothered about what man says or what man wants or what man boasts or what man dreams. But I do need the prophets. I need to know the heart and mind of Christ. I need to know what He wants.
So they came.
Because even in a move of the Spirit when people are coming to the Lord and many signs are being done, we still need the message from God.

12 years

Acts 11: 26

“and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”

There are so many wonderful truths in this one verse but this morning I am thinking about what isn’t written but is inferred. How many years do you think Saul stayed in Tarsus?
12 years!
But these are not wasted years. They are preparation years.
So what can we learn?
1. Saul was found.
We are found people. Jesus came and found us when we were lost, hidden and alone.

2. Saul was brought.
We are journeymen. We are ready for change. Take my life and let it be ….

3. Saul taught.
We ear disciple makers. That’s what we are whether we are doing it or not.
You can only teach if you have dug. For 12 years he studied and now he came and taught.

4. Saul worked with Barnabas.
We are team players. Solo Christianity should not be happening. God always sends out in twos. Find someone.

5. Saul’s focus was Jesus.
Christians are little Jesus’s. Why wee they called that? Simply because Jesus was everything.. He occupied their thinking, speaking and behaviour.

Search
Acts 11: 25

“Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,”
In the middle of such joy of seeing many come to the Lord, Barnabas remembered Saul. 

Saul had been sent to Tarsus for his own protection. He was hiding away. Unseen but not forgotten.

Barnabas went to look for him. It means he searched until he saw him. He wasn’t going to give up until he found him. 

Sometimes it is not just about going that is important. It is about the struggle of searching for the right person. If you want to be involved in the mission of God then it will take not just your effort, but your time, money and resources. There are some who are unseen, they are in preparation for what is to come. Tarsus the city of great learning, a hub of Roman power, of trade, where Saul would get his cloth for his tent making business. Saul/Paul was temporarily here but it was time. It was time to emerge. It was time to do something with all he had learned. He had been sent away now it was a time to call him back. Barnabas was focused to get the hidden man back to being the mission man. He didn’t know how much this man would influence the world. We never do. We just obey. We go to every individual not knowing. But God knows. 

Don’t give up. Don’t slow down. Keep up the struggle and you will find who you are looking for. The next influencer. The next preacher, missionary, church planter, politician, business man, the list goes on and on. If you would only search. 

Compassion isn’t everything
Acts 11:19

Now those who had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, telling the message only to Jews.
A person can be slandered, beaten and lose everything just escaping with their life. They can be displaced and have to flee with nothing except the belongings they can carry. They may have to travel far and wide to places they had never heard of, even to cross dangerous seas to places like Cyprus. They may have to do all this and still the greatest change in their life is the need to change their heart. 

On the day Stephen was martyred the prejudiced Church were displaced. 

These people would still only reach out to the Jews. They still despised the Gentiles but the Spirit had already begun His work to change this. My point is that compassion for those who suffer must not overlook the need for a change of their heart especially towards Jesus and His work. 

I remember being shocked from learning that a persecuted Christian leader who was taken from his Church and held in prison, tortured terribly for his faith, that on his release and safely being looked after in another country was then divorced by his wife for previous abuse of her prior to his capture. His suffering shadowed the tyranny of his heart.

In recent times we have all been amazed by the mass exodus of those who have suffered. It is highly controversial for some in the many countries that have welcomed the migrants. What these people have suffered is terrible. Many lose their lives trying to find freedom. Yesterday I watched a news clip which saw one family broken up into several countries with others still trapped in Aleppo, Syria. Any human being cannot fail to be moved with compassion thankful that this is not them but that it could be. In our compassion and our moves to help them let us not forget the amazing opportunity we have and what the Spirit wants to do in this situation.

Remember Jesus died for these people. They need our help and importantly they need us to introduce them to Jesus the Saviour.

Don’t let suffering blind us to the need of seeing a change in their heart. Heart change is needed for everyone. Those outside the Church and those within.

Who am I?

Acts 11:17
“So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?”

Who was I?
Great question.
Who am I? We do well to carry this question around a bit more.
Peter knew his place.
Many are on a mission today. A mission of wanting to become someone, trying to make a name for themselves. Sadly and probably not surprisingly you find some of these within the Church especially those who get paid to be in it. Whilst those who pay do so because they want to have heroes. It’s modern day idol-worship.
Many have tried to pretend they have something that has never actually been given to them.
Many are trying to be great, anything less is failure.
These people tire quickly and leave the Church, unable to sustain such pressure. Or they move into retirement having spent a life of misbelief, not about God, but about themselves.
It’s time for the ‘many’ to acknowledge who they are not.
I am not the be all and end all.
I am not the answer to everyone’s questions.
I am not the healer.
I am not the Saviour.
We are people following the Way, we don’t own the way.
We just do not know everything. What we believe we know today could change in a decade. A lot that we hold to is subjective.
We peer through a glass darkly at times but we worship the Truth. You see no one has the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But we follow the Truth.
We don’t give life we receive it from the Life.
Who am I?
We need to give ourselves a break from trying to be the fountain of all truth and knowledge and we need to give others a break who are fed up of hearing such comments perhaps.
We have part-vision. We do not see everything. We do not possess the perfect understanding. We at times see trees that walk.
However, by staying connected to Jesus we have a far better chance of getting perfect sight!
That’s the point of the journey.
So, if today it’s all a bit cloudy then that’s okay. Hang in there for with Jesus it will become clear in the end. Even if you have to wait till after your end!
It’s not until you know who you are not, that you open up to who you are.
What Peter knew was this: God loves everyone equally. God can do things that we think He wouldn’t do.
I think that’s all we need to know don’t you?

Remembering what Jesus said

Acts 11:16
“Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptised with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.’

Some are contained by what others have said to them.
The words entered their very soul and destabilised their balance of life.
Today they respond according to what was cursed on them. Their yes or their no is filtered through that curse that came from an enemy and even a loved one.
Why is this so?
They chose to remember what was said. In their remembrance they replayed those words time and again in their minds until they became conditioned by this pattern.
This is not rocket science, no one needs a degree to realise how true this is. You may even be that person today.

What do you remember today? How is that helping you?
Peter remembered what Jesus had said about the Holy Spirit coming on people and it helped him process what was happening.
I have a Good News Bible that I won at the Keswick Bible week children’s meeting for my skill in memory Bible verses. What a claim to fame that is?!
In my early years of ministry I would run many holiday clubs for children, they all involved memory Bible verse games.
Most churches still do this kind of thing. But only for children.
In fact what happens when these children become adults and maybe even before that, is that they stop memorising what God has said in the Bible.
The result of this is that adults cannot recollect much of what the Bible and in particular what God has said.
They do not recollect because there is a famine of the reading of the Bible amongst the Christian family. Muslims and Jews learn their Scriptures but not Christians. We don’t learn because we don’t read.
This daily blog started many years ago after a survey conducted by LICC said that only a minority of my members read the Bible. I was so concerned that I began to write a daily blog from the Bible to introduce my members to the Bible and how it can help their day. Approximately 80% of the church signed up for this daily blog. I didn’t want them to be people who remembered what man said about them but what God said. I wanted them to be guided in their life by what Jesus said.
When I left the Church I continued. I have wrote a Bible blog and posted it on the Internet every day for 10 years. I’m not sure exactly how many read it. It goes on to a few social media sites and people access it from many countries. Why do I do this every day?
For the simple fact that I believe remembering what God says in the Bible is the most important thing in your life.
I too have been plagued by the words of people in my life and it does limit you if not careful, but I know the victory that comes from remembering what Christ has said. If I can keep encouraging people to daily have time in the Bible then it’s the best thing I can do.

Peter was able to move forward in this move of God, he could recognise it as such, even though it ran against his cultural and learned experience. He did this because he remembered what Christ had said.

The reason why you read the Bible is to memorise it so that at some point when the test comes you can remember it. Just like you did as a child perhaps. Just like I did.

Begin
Acts 11:15

“As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning.”
You have to begin.

You may have good intent. You may declare you will.

But you have to begin.

Peter began to speak and as he did, the Spirit began to come on the household. 

What happened surprised him. He would never have anticipated this move.

He began to speak because that’s what he believed God had told him to do. He didn’t speak having worked out what would happen next. He just began.

Who knows where things would lead if we just begin?

Some speeches motivate and are remembered for generations: ‘never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few’ – Churchill’s war time speeches inspire even today.

We certainly need more preachers to be more inspiring. Those of us who communicate for a living need to work at the craft and get better. 

However, this is not about the quality of Peters speech or his delivery. It is about the Holy Spirit and it is about Peter beginning to speak.

Maybe just going next door to a neighbours house and just beginning to speak words of love and other great things that need to be said. Maybe just sharing with a loved one the truth that God does care and He cares enough to have sent Jesus. Maybe that’s what you need to begin to do.

And maybe then you will see the move of the Holy Spirit that you have longed for or maybe the Spirit will surprise you and do more than you could have imagined.

Maybe.

If you begin.

The Message

Acts 11:14
“He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.”

The message of Jesus Christ is still a message that leads to whole households being saved.

An old childhood hymn had these words:

I’ve a message from the Lord, Hallelujah!
The message unto you I’ll give;
’Tis recorded in His Word, Hallelujah!
It is only that you look and live.
Look and live, O sinner, live, Look to Jesus now and live;

’Tis recorded in His Word, Hallelujah! It is only that you look and live.

A quick scan over the gospels and we see:

1. The message must be clear, simple and in context.
Matthew 3:1-2 While Jesus was living in the Galilean hills, John, called “the Baptizer,” was preaching in the desert country of Judea. His message was simple and austere, like his desert surroundings: “Change your life. God’s kingdom is here.”

2. The message is not only about the past or the future but what God can do now.
Matthew 10:7 as you go proclaim this message, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’

3. The message must be explained not just spoken.
Matthew 13:19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.

4. The message should be illustrated with relevance, helping the listener to understand.
Mark 4: 33-34 With many stories like these, he presented his message to them, fitting the stories to their experience and maturity. He was never without a story when he spoke. When he was alone with his disciples, he went over everything, sorting out the tangles, untying the knots.

5. The messenger may well be challenged and that may come from the religious.
Luke 20: 1-2 One day he was teaching the people in the Temple, proclaiming the Message. The high priests, religion scholars, and leaders confronted him and demanded, “Show us your credentials. Who authorized you to speak and act like this?”

6. Their needs to be messengers in every generation.
John 17:20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,”

7. The message needs to be brought, this takes a focused effort, it just doesn’t automatically happen.
Today’s verse, v14 “He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.”