Category: Devotions

The Bible and Mission
Acts 17: 10-15
In this reading we find Paul is in a place called Berea with his Bible in hand, preaching from the Bible, proving Christ is the Messiah from the Bible. The Old Testament scriptures played a big part in Paul’s ministry.
And in this backwater of a place called Berea he found people who were more advanced than the Thessalonians in that they were noble or open-minded to the Bible, they received the message of the Bible with great eagerness and they examined the Bible for themselves every day.
The purpose of our life is to be re-shaped into the likeness of Jesus. Every sermon, book, every Bible verse we read , conference we attend , experience we have can be used by God to teach us how to grow in Him.
There is a cartoon of Charlie Brown at the beach building a magnificent sand castle. When he had completed it, he stands back and admires his masterpiece. Suddenly there is a downpour of rain and it flattens his brilliant structure.
The last caption Charlie Brown is looking at the leveled ground and he says, “There must be a lesson here, but I don’t know what it is”.
Let that not happen to us!
Are we open-minded to be taught from the Bible the lessons of life? And will the Bible teach us to be open-minded to the Spirit leading us in our life?
I hope the answers are YES

God will guide you
Acts 16

• The obvious way is not always the right way.
It was the most natural thing for this missions team from where they were to look south-west along a famous Roman road called the via Sebaste toward Asia. Surely this is the way to take.
But the natural choice was the wrong choice.

• We need to trust the bigger picture that we cannot see.
Moving north-west they try to enter Bithnyia but again they cannot. But surely Bithynyia needed the gospel? It did and it received it apparently: 1 Peter 1:1 Peter took the gospel there.
Perhaps the Spirit was saying “No leave this for Peter”. But Paul at the time didn’t know this, he had to trust the bigger picture.
Sometimes God has to say no and you cant see why, there is no explanation, and you have to trust that it is serving the bigger picture. One day you will step back and see how your life was part of a wonderful tapestry that God had out together.

• When one door closes another opens
Everyone knows the closed door experiences and the hurt it causes.
Particularly when you have given time and effort to something. Paul had travelled south-east to north-west by a strange circular route. He can’t get into Asia and he can’t get into Bithynia. But they were to learn that when God closes doors it is only to open others.
The door that opens is not only a miracle, a circumstantial move of God, but it can be through thinking together corporately, mulling over a situation, reaching a communal mind. This is what the word in v10 ‘concluding’ has its meaning in.

Today someone reading this will need to know the truth that God is guiding her.

I think Paul was right
Acts 15
This was a tough mission. His second missionary journey was already proving difficult with abuse and stonings etc. he didn’t need John leaving him.
This was a mission needing perseverance. It was Jesus who said don’t put your hand to the plough and then look back.
This was a mission that received support. In v40 good people from the church at Antioch were endorsing Paul.
Paul was right not to take John Mark, this was a tough mission, a mission calling for perseverance and it seemed plenty people supported him.
He should have been listened to.

I think Barnabas was right.
He had invested so much in Paul. He had introduced Paul to the apostles. He had travelled to Tarsus to then open the door for Paul to preach. He had stepped aside to let Paul become the leader of the missions journey even though he had originally been the leader.
He believed in God’s grace. He believed in the God of the second chance.
He should have been listened to.

Paul was right. Barnabas was right.
The worst of arguments happen when both people are right.
You can be so right, the holder of the truth, justified before God and men. Yet how you handle the truth, how you conduct yourself with that truth will determine whether you remain in the right.

Mission truths
Acts 14

Effectiveness and trouble can exist side by side, v1-2
Watch out for disappointment coming during a time of success.

The gospel can birth faith to enable what has never been done v9-10
Just because something has never happened does not mean it will not.

What you try and rescue people from could end up trying to trap you, v11-15
Not every attack of the enemy is painful, flattery can be his strongest weapon.

You may flee the enemy but the enemy can follow, v6, 19.
Freedom is sometimes only found in the valley of the shadow of death.

It is only courage that will take you back to where you have been expelled, threatened and stoned, v21.
Commitment to people will continue to drive you forward.

Mission goes forward.
Acts 13
Why did John return to Jerusalem?
We learn later how Paul saw the severity of this referring to it as desertion.
So was it because of fear for being a missionary?
Was John simply homesick?
Or did he have a problem with Paul’s leadership?
We are not told, just that he returned home.
Luke teaches us that it is not always necessary to air our dirty washing in public or other people’s for that matter. Just say what needs to be said. Sometimes less is better. Not everyone needs to know the details.
In actual fact when fewer people know the reasons for the failure then it is easier when the fallen is restored as John Mark was.
Just say the bare facts and move on.

But the church was praying …
Acts 12
Some Christians had been arrested … but the church was praying.
Christians were facing persecution … but the church was praying.
Their leader, James, was martyred … but the church was praying.
Apostle Peter was captured … but the church was praying.
Peter was in prison … but the church was praying.
The angel of The Lord came to Peter … but the church was praying.
Chains fell off Peter … but the church was praying.
Peter was led out of the prison … but the church was praying.
Peter was knocking on the door of the church … but the church was praying.
Peter kept on knocking on the door … but the church was praying.
The church needs to know when to stop praying as much as when to pray.
Sometimes we talk too much.

Prejudice needs breaking
Acts 11

Prejudice will blind you to what is the most important matter.
When Peter arrives with the good news of household salvation what was he faced with?
Questioning over why he had entered a Gentiles home and what he had eaten!
What concerned them was not the baptism of the first Roman soldier but the sudden break with the unquestioned way of life!
They were blinded.

Prejudice makes us act like we are God
It leads us into the most desperate of sins, that of taking His name in vain, assuming and declaring He is saying what He is indeed not saying. God does not always believe what we believe in.

Prejudice keeps us outside of being able to influence.
v3 and v12 they went into the house!
Influence was inside not outside the Gentiles house.
God did not speak a message to us outside of the house. But “He was in the world.” Up close and personal. Who with? Us! Mankind, the sinner. He was the incarnation of God. God in flesh. God came into our home. The holy entered the unholy and influenced it forever.

Prejudice keeps us opposed to the Spirit of change.
v12 The Spirit told me (to change) …
v17 who was I to think I could oppose God (I had to change, will you?)

Broken prejudice welcomes the Spirit of blessing
v17 As I began to speak (Pentecost happened all over again!)
There is no mission with prejudice.

Peter probably didn’t think he had prejudice.
We probably don’t either.
But he was.
And we probably are.
Acts 10
Prejudice is exposed in the place of prayer, v9
Prejudice is defeated when a higher law of love is obeyed, v28
Prejudice closes us down to the possibilities of God, v45
“Just as we are” 4 words that will keep prejudice at a distance, v47
Do you prejudge?

Saul was filled with hatred – in Acts 9:21 he caused “havoc” in Jerusalem – RSV 26:11 says he persecuted in a “raging fury”.
However, he was a man of “great learning” Acts 26:24. A Pharisee, a son of a Pharisee.
On the way to Damascus – with a passion for God – a clear vision – a life-consuming zeal – he thought he was doing the will of God this new sect of Christians were an abomination before God.

Then came the knockdown.

We are serving a God who can build and tear down. Saul is traveling the road all built up. God tore him down. Saul suddenly found himself on the ground. He had gone to arrest Christians and Christ arrested him.

Sometimes the only way God can make us see is to knock us down and blind us for a while.
The setback must be viewed as an inevitable process of the success. If there is no setback then you’re probably not really moving forward with anything.

Listen to what a trapeze artist says about the knockdown:
“Once you know that the net below will catch you, you stop worrying about falling. You actually learn to fall successfully! What that means is, you can concentrate on catching the trapeze swinging toward you, and not on falling, because repeated falls in the past have convinced you that the net is strong and reliable when you do fall … The result of falling and being caught by the net is a mysterious confidence and daring on the trapeze. You fall less. Each fall makes you able to risk more.”
The knockdowns builds a resilience to go keep going. It also releases new ideas.
Kellogs cornflakes resulted when boiled wheat was left in a baking pan overnight by mistake.
It has been said that in science, mistakes always precede the truth.
Don’t shy away from the knockdown, don’t take the setback too personally, failing does not make you a failure.

The knockdown can be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Philip is told to venture ‘south to the road – the desert road – that goes from Jerusalem to Gaza’
Acts 8
The very fact that Luke the author, mentions and highlights that this is ‘the desert road’ as a kind of aside, underlies the strangeness of such a command.

Philip has just come from Samaria, where he has been involved in major successful evangelism, and is now being led down a desert road, a road that to Philip would have seemed pretty inappropriate for any further Christian work.

The Message bible describes it as ‘a desolate road’. Nobody would be on this road, because it is thought that the phrase ‘Go south to’ is translated in Greek as ‘at noon’, and the message bible actually uses the phrases ‘at noon today’. Noon time the road would be deserted of travellers because of the heat.

For Philip this seems a strange instruction, he is being called to walk down the most unlikely of roads, ‘a lonely road’. From great success to seemingly nothing.

Why?
Because God has someone there that he wants Philip to meet. And Philip’s meeting with the Ethiopian is a life changing one, not just for the Ethiopian Eunuch but the community to which he goes back to. His life is transformed by Jesus, and so he goes back to his community and tells them about his experience, and their lives are transformed.

A desert, desolate, lonely road. A road of unimportance. A road which looked insignificant. But a road that led to greatness. One road, one meeting, a transformation takes place, all God’s deliberate purpose.
The road you’re on maybe a road like Philips’, desolate, and lonely. You may question God as to why you’re on this road. It seems to you inappropriate.
But keep going as it will lead to Gods purpose. It will become clear.
Mission is not exciting all the time.