Spiritcode

Paul’s Job Description

PAUL’S JOB DESCRIPTION 

Acts 9 :1. Saul continued to terrorize the disciples of the Lord with murderous threats. One day he went to the high priest, saying he wanted letters of authorization he could give to those in the synagogues of Damascus, that if he found any followers of Jesus, men or women, he might arrest them and bring them bound as prisoners, to Jerusalem.
3. He set off on his journey, and when he was almost at Damascus, a great light from Heaven shone all around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’
5. Saul said ‘Who are you Lord?’ And the Lord said ‘ I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting. And it has been hard for you to fight against the prodding of your own conscience. 
6. Astonished and shaken up by what had happened to him he said ‘Lord what do you want me to do?’ The Lord said ‘Get up and go into the city and I will tell you what you have to do.’
7. The men who had been travelling with him stood by, speechless, because they heard a voice but did not see anyone.
8. Saul then picked himself up off the ground and when he opened his eyes he found he could not see a thing, so his companions had to lead him by the hand into Damascus.
9. He stayed blind for three days, and neither ate nor drank anything the whole time.
10. The Lord then spoke to a man called Ananias in a vision, and said ‘Ananias, Get up and go to Straight Street, to the house of Judas, and ask for a man called Saul, whom you will find praying. I’ve given Saul a vision of a man called Ananias coming in to lay hands on him, so that he might get his sight back again. Ananias answered,’ Lord I have heard about this man from many people, and how much evil and destruction he has brought upon the saints in Jerusalem. And he has obtained authority here in Damascus from the chief priests to imprison anyone who calls upon your name. But the Lord answered him ‘Do what you are told, because he is a chosen vessel of mine, to bear my name before the nations, and before kings, and the children of Israel.
16. I want to show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake.
17. Ananias did as he was told and went into the house and laid hands upon Saul and said ‘Brother Saul the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on your journey here has sent me to you for you to receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Straightaway it was as though scales fell from his eyes and he could see. He stood up and became baptized. Saul’s strength returned after he ate some food. He then stayed on for some days in Damascus with some of the disciples. Soon after that Saul began preaching in the synagogues about Christ being the Son of God. He confounded the Jews in Damascus as he debated with them, proving that Jesus was indeed the Christ Messiah.

At the time of this spectacular conversion account Saul would have been a man in his thirties and regarded as one of the most promising of the young Jews in Judaism, commissioned as the enforcer against Christians – and for him to ‘switch sides’ was unthinkable for all parties. He was convinced that Jesus was dead, and now all that remained for him was to wipe out as many followers as he could. 
Saul had a purpose in life – he had power over people, to judge, condemn and to punish.
But meeting the living Jesus on the road to Damascus changed that purpose and the entire course of his life, as it does to all who meet the living Jesus. Paul would have power to love and transform and heal the souls of man ‘for the love of Christ compels me’ (2Corinthians 5:14.)
These two powers contend for the hearts of mankind in this day.

Saul was led, blinded, into Damascus, and didn’t eat or drink for three days. When he regains his sight the first thing he sees is a man whose name is Ananias which means ‘The grace of God’, and the grace of God becomes his banner of life from that moment on.

It is interesting to note that a major part of his job description as Paul is to suffer for Jesus’ names sake. There are many Scriptures describing these sufferings in Paul’s letters but he sums it up comprehensively in the following verses;

2Corinthians 11:13 Concerning those who boast that they are doing God’s work in just the same way we are. God never sent those men at all; they are “phonies” who have fooled you into thinking they are Christ’s apostles… They say they serve Christ? 
But I have served him far more! (Have I gone mad to boast like this?) I have worked harder than them, been put in jail more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again and again. Five different times the Jews gave me their terrible thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was severely pelted with rocks. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I was in the open sea all night and the whole next day. I have traveled many weary miles and have been often in great danger from flooded rivers and from robbers and from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the hands of the Gentiles. I have faced grave dangers from mobs in the cities and from death in the deserts and in the stormy seas and from men who claim to be brothers in Christ but are not. I have lived with weariness and pain and sleepless nights. Often I have been hungry and thirsty and have gone without food; often I have shivered with cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I don’t feel his weakness? Who is made to fall, and I am not consumed with grief?

Every experience of suffering that Paul went through became the preface to the revealing of his ministry of life - the life-giving Spirit of Jesus worked in him and through him. For Paul this process is the only valid ‘work of the ministry’ that God has ordained for us who live as being ‘in Christ’. Paul was not interested in the ‘dead works’ of religion but in the ‘faith that works by love’. (Galatians 5:5). He knew that faith was dead without being energised by the work of the love of God. Paul knew that that love was the energy (energeo-working) that releases God’s creative power and God’s transformative power into the hearts of mankind. Paul saw suffering as an opportunity to release that energy and saw it as being able to overpower the worldly power of unloving energies that opposed the power of that divine power of ‘faith that works by love’ in the world. 

The laws of physics describe power as a function of the flow of energy. 
The world sees the self-determining of purpose and status and meaningful influence in life as a power struggle between competing ambitions and ideologies.  This power is always at work in Politics and financial corporate identity, and cultural relevance, and religion. These entities compete for moral high ground and virtue status against each other, and the power struggle is ruthless.
But the energy of the power in those ideological power struggles is the same that Saul the Pharisee once lived in. It is to judge and condemn and to punish. This is the power that drives today’s identity politics and saving the planet ideologies. People are recruited into joining a noble moral army to fight the evils of what their ideology claims is evil. By joining this army a recruit is entitled to use whatever means is available to destroy the enemies of their cause. 
The recruits can praise themselves for being virtuous saviours of today’s culture, and their virtue and self-aggrandisement does not even mean ever having to do anything productive or sacrificial (unless you call destroying statues, desecrating valuable artwork in museums or disrupting peak hour traffic as being productive, or sacrificial – no, all one has to do is judge and condemn and punish the deniers of the virtuous moral code (and turn up for protest marches).  The power brokers and leaders of these power structures embolden the efforts of the deluded recruits, whose lives end up producing confusion and disillusionment. 

The world elevates the power of judgment above the power of love, but with Christians it must not be so (but so often is). We are energised by the power of God’s love. God loves, and God judges (we don’t) and he holds everyone to account for what they purposed as against what he purposed for their lives. I came not to condemn he world but to save the world The best way for a Christian to overcome sin in the world as best they can is to overcome it in themselves as best they can.

Paul saw that the power of sacrificial love was worth dying for, as it was for Jesus. In Paul’s fellowship of the suffering of Christ he was able to count everything else as loss, because for him, suffering had meaning and purpose.
We may not be invited into such a dangerous and life-threatening journey of suffering as Paul’s, with its adventure and misadventure, but we can certainly relate to the other inner sufferings that he went through in his soul. As he writes later on.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ‘For we who live are always being yielded up to death (thanatos – loss of life) for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal body. So death is at work in us, but life in you (2Corinthians 4:7).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
When we enter into the life of becoming a life-giving Spirit with Jesus that life is imparted by our faith, not just thought about or talked about. That life gets ministered into the spiritual atmosphere around us and is able to touch the spirit of other people. There is a spiritual atmosphere that exists as an unseen reality everywhere on earth, and Paul desired above all things to ‘know him, and the fellowship of his sufferings that he might also know the power of his resurrection’. (Philippians 3:10)
Paul also said ‘be imitators of me as I am of Christ’ (1Corinthians 11)

The life-giving Spirit operates through the yielding of our own self purposed life in order to find our God purposed life. ‘For whoever would save (protect) his (self-purposed) life will lose it, but whoever loses his self-purposed life for my sake will find his God purposed life. (Matthew 16:25)

We continue to live with a realistic awareness of our limited outer life and facing life’s ongoing difficulties while at the same time resting in faith that our God purposed life energised by sacrificial love is continually bringing forth its promise of transformation of our own and of other peoples’ lives beyond our imagination and overpowering all other powers of darkness and sin.
We can become the embodiment of the life-giving Spirit of Jesus and impart God’s life into the spiritual atmosphere around us. This does not mean that we look like we are wearing a halo with our feet not quite touching the ground. It simply means going about life managing our everyday activities but coming from a place of faith deep down inside of us that something powerful of the risen life of Jesus in the world of the unseen, is bringing his will upon the earth according to his will in Heaven and transforming our personal world around us.

 

Philip Baptises the Eunuch

PHILIP AND THE EUNUCH – ACTS 8:26-40
The story of Acts chapter eight concerning Philip’s ministry in Samaria and the account of all the people there receiving the power of the Holy Spirit continues to unfold in a most powerful way.

Acts 8:26. The angel of the Lord then spoke to Philip and told him to travel south on the road that goes from Jerusalem down to the desert region of Gaza. When he got there, he saw an Ethiopian man, a eunuch who was a high official of Candace the queen of Ethiopia, and who managed her treasury. He had been to Jerusalem to worship, and He was sitting in his chariot on his way home, reading Isaiah the prophet. 
29. The Holy Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over and join that man sitting in the chariot. Philip went directly to the man and heard him reading out loud from the book of Isaiah. He asked him if he understood what it was that he was reading. The man said ’The only way I can understand this is if somebody explains it to me.’ He asked Philip to come up and sit next to him. The passage of Scripture that he was reading was “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He opened not His mouth. In His humiliation His justice was taken away, and who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.” (Isaiah 53:7ff)

34. The eunuch said to Philip ‘Who is Isaiah speaking about here, is it himself, or some other man? Philip began to share with the man from that very passage of Scripture, that it was Jesus who was being spoken about, and he preached about Jesus to him.  As they continued to travel, they came to a watering place and the eunuch said to Philip ‘Here is some water, what is stopping me from being baptised?’ Philip replied, ‘If you believe with all your heart, nothing is stopping you.’ The eunuch said ‘I believe that Jesus is the Son of God’ Then he commanded the drivers to stop the chariot and he and Philip went down into the water together and Philip baptised him.

39. When they came up out of the water the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away to Azotus (60 Km – a short flight) and he vanished from the sight of the eunuch, who resumed his journey, rejoicing all the way (The journey of the rest of his life).  Philip then passed through the area of Azotus, preaching in all the cities there till he arrived at Caesarea.

The Ethiopian was obviously a man who had converted to Judaism and had been visiting for the Jewish feast in Jerusalem where he would have heard about Jesus. He must have had a seeking heart and so God arranged for the truth of the gospel to be brought to him, and Philip was given by the Spirit, the words to say to the man, explaining that the Scriptures were talking of Jesus as the promised Messiah. He must have explained to the man the truth of water baptism as being the picture of his old life being buried with Jesus into death and then rising into new life in Christ, because the Ethiopian had asked to be baptised. He was then fully immersed in water as it states that they went ‘down into the water and came up out of the water’.
There is no talk of any ‘follow up’ after the man’s conversion so Philip would have had to commit the Ethiopian into The Lord’s hands for his future growth in his walk with The Lord. But it is a known fact that Ethiopia became ‘Christianised’ very early in the history of the church, so it appears that Philip’s ministry was very effective, and the message of water baptism that Philip would have taught him would have been enough to allow that man to walk in the freedom of the exchanged life of Jesus within him.
The beautiful outcome of the experience of salvation and revelation that came to the eunuch on that road has another most likely and astounding outcome. As the eunuch would have continued to read Isaiah from chapter fifty three onwards his eyes would have alighted on the following words from chapter fifty-six.
Isaiah 56:3 And my blessings are for Gentiles, too, when they accept the Lord; don’t let them think that I will ever overlook them. And this is for the eunuchs too. They will be as much mine as anyone. For I say this to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths holy, who choose the things that please me and obey my laws: I will give them—in my house, within my walls—a name far greater than the honour they would receive from having sons and daughters. For the name that I will give them is an everlasting one; it will never disappear.
As for the Gentiles, the outsiders who join the people of the Lord and serve him and love his name, who are his servants and don’t desecrate the Sabbath, and have accepted his covenant and promises, I will bring them also to my holy mountain of Jerusalem and make them full of joy within my House of Prayer.
I will accept their sacrifices and offerings, for my Temple shall be called “A House of Prayer for All Nations”! For the Lord God who brings back the outcasts of Israel says: I will bring others, too, besides my people Israel. (what a unique passage of Scripture)

Just before Jesus ascended in Heaven, his last words included the following command about doing all the things he told them to do, emphasising being baptised, and we can see this being done throughout the Book of Acts.
Matthew 28:19 Therefore go and make disciples in all the nations, baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and then teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you; and be sure of this—that I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” 
Philip would have faithfully obeyed that command and explained to the Ethiopian the picture of water baptism as being buried into the death of Jesus by being submerged into the water and rising up with Jesus in newness of life when coming up out of the water. 
But it is Paul who brilliantly describes to us the essence of this life changing act of faith. He speaks to the Romans about how God’s grace and goodness outweighs all the sin and unbelief in the world because the new life of Jesus that lives within us is available to all those who believe in that and commit to living it out. 
Romans 6:1 But does this mean that because God’s goodness outweighs our badness so much that we should stay bad so that more of God’s goodness can be seen? Definitely not. How can we, who want the old sin and unbelief life to die off, also want to keep it alive at the same time? 
As many of us as were baptised (submerged and soaked) into the life of Jesus and identified with his life are first immersed into his death, and soaked in what his death means. It means that we were buried with him when we were immersed as one with him in his death, so that just as he was raised into new life by the power of The Father, we will also be soaked with the power of his new life. 5 For if we have shared the death with him, we will also share the risen life with him. Be aware of this, that the entire previous order of humanity in Adam has been crucified with Jesus, so that humanity’s alliance with sin and unbelief might be made redundant (katarge??), and that from now on we don’t have to serve in that old alliance of humanity in Adam. See yourselves as being as dead, as Jesus was, to the world of sin and unbelief, but alive and living for and with and in God, through what Jesus has done on our behalf.

Jesus said that the holy Spirit would be sent into the world to convict the world of sin because of their unbelief – the word sin ‘hamartia’ means to miss the mark, so to convict the world of sin means to reveal to the heart of everyone what is causing them to miss the mark of the target for their life – believing in Jesus and letting his life live within them. 
The big sin is unbelief. 

12 Sin and unbelief are no longer in control of you, because you are not answerable to the penalties and judgements of the Commandments, but you are answerable to the empowerment of God’s goodness and grace. And being set free from sin and unbelief’s hold over you, you have become the servants of godly welldoing, so now you can give yourselves over to a life of integrity and devotion to demonstrating the goodness of God.

The Ethiopian eunuch would have been a competent man of high status in the royal courts of Ethiopia but would always have felt deprived of privileges like having a family, that other less prestigious individuals would have enjoyed. But assuming he read the astounding words of Isaiah that revealed the unique graciousness of God to him he would have felt lifted into a realm of faith and grace to be able to love and bless all the people of his world back home in Ethiopia. He had no one to disciple him except for the Holy Spirit, who would have taken him into the endless depths of the work of transformation that began when he arose out of the waters of baptism into a new life in Christ. 
He was now empowered to give himself over to a life of Godly wisdom and devotion in demonstrating the goodness of God to all he knew and influenced in his world.

The Promise of the Father

THE PROMISE OF THE FATHER

Acts 8:1. Saul fully approved of Stephen’s execution. And then there arose a great persecution against the Jerusalem church, which caused disciples to flee from Jerusalem and be scattered throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria. But the apostles stayed in Jerusalem 2. Some faithful disciples carried Stephen to be buried, and there was much grieving and lamentation over him. 3. But Saul continued to ravage the church, charging into peoples’ houses and dragging men and women off to prison. 4. And those that fled Jerusalem were scattered and began preaching the word everywhere they went.
5. Philip went to the city of Samaria, preaching Christ to the people there, and  everyone in that place listened intently to what Philip said and saw the miracles that occurred through his ministry. 7. Evil spirits, crying out loudly, came out of many people who were oppressed. And many that had been frail and paralyzed and crippled were healed 8. And great joy broke out in that city. 9. There was a man there called Simon, who had been a sorcerer in that city for a long time, bewitching and beguiling the people of Samaria, claiming that he was some almighty person. 10. Everyone there, from the least to the greatest had paid awesome respect to this man, saying that he had the almighty power of God, and they all revered him because for many years he had bewitched them with his sorcery. 12. But when they listened to Philip’s preaching on the things of the Kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were all baptized, both men and women.13. Then Simon himself also became a believer and after being baptized, he committed himself to following Philip, and he was amazed and astounded by the mighty power he saw in the miracles done through Philip’s ministry.
14. When the apostles at Jerusalem heard the news that Samaria had received the word of God they sent Peter and John to go and see what was happening. 15. And when they got there they prayed for the people to receive* (*lambano – take hold of, embrace) the Holy Spirit 16. For they had not yet received* the Holy Spirit. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17. So the apostles laid their hands on them and they received* the Holy Spirit. 18. When Simon saw that the Holy Spirit could be received* through the laying on of hands he offered them money. 19. He asked them to give him that same power so that upon whomever he laid his hands would receive* the Holy Spirit. 20. But Peter said to him ‘Let your money perish with you for even thinking that the gift of God could be purchased with money’ 21. This matter belongs to a realm that has nothing to do with you and of which you know nothing. Your heart is not right in the sight of God. 22. Turn away from this wicked thinking and pray to God that he might forgive the evil in your mind and heart. 23. I can see a poison and bitter root of evil in you which has brought your soul into bondage 24. Simon then said to Peter ‘Please pray to the Lord for me that what you have spoken will not happen to me.’
25. After the apostles had finished preaching and instructing the people in the word, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many of the villages of Samaria on the way. 

Jesus had told his disciples that when he went to be with the Father that he would send them the Holy Spirit and they would receive his power to become a living witness of God working through them with different kinds of anointings to bring the Kingdom of God into their times and into their cultures where they lived. He called this the ‘promise of the Father’ (Acts1:4)

On the day of Pentecost the ‘promise of the Father’ was sent and Peter proclaimed this as the message to everyone there on that day; ‘And God declares that in the last days ‘I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh’ (Acts 2:17).
Philip obviously did not preach about the fulness of the Holy Spirit in Samaria that Peter did in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.
If someone does not know that this is the promise of the Father, they will remain ignorant of the need to ‘receive the Holy Spirit’ in order for the empowering of the Holy Spirit to reveal the work of Jesus working within them. 
People can be told about Jesus and believe he exists and admire him and want to follow him and even receive the forgiveness of sins, and then to even preach about him, but only the Holy Spirit can reveal Jesus to people and lead them into all truth. Jesus said, ‘and when the Holy Spirit is come he will not speak of himself but will glorify me… All that theFather has is mine… and he will take of Mine and reveal to you’(John 16:14-16).

God has required that people be told of the ‘promise of the Father’ so that they will know what ask for so that they can receive what he has promised.
Luke 11:10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are sinful, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

This promise can also be found in the Old Testament where God tells his people he will one day put his Holy Spirit within them, but he wants them to ask him to do this for them.

Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My ways, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Vs.36 I, the LORD, have spoken it, and I will do it." I will also let the house of Israel ask Me to do this for them: In other words - I want to know that you want this - and I want you to ask me to do it for you.

Paul had a similar experience in Acts chapter nineteen that Peter and John had with Philip’s preaching in chapter eight when he went to preach the Gospel to the people of Ephesus. 
People had been told about Jesus and had believed in Jesus but there was something missing.
Acts 19:1 Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John's baptism.” And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” 
On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them…

They had already heard the Gospel and believed in Jesus, but it was only after were told of the promise of the Father that they could then receive the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
Paul writes to the Ephesian church later on and tells them about this pathway of truth that he was committed to leading them into.
Ephesians 1:12-1 We should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.
In whom you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after you believed, you were sealed with that holy Spirit of Promise…

This brings us right back to the beginning when Jesus told his disciples about the ‘promise of the Father’. They would receive his power to become a living witness of God working through them.

One more thing… Paul writes to the Ephesians in chapter five encouraging them to become this living witness to the life of God within them.

Ephesians 5:15 Look carefully then how you live your life, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because these times are malicious (and mad). Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, letting that control your behaviour, but keep on being filled with the Spirit, letting that order your life.

The Temple of The Holy Spirit

THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 
Reading from the last two verses of Chapter 6 
Acts 6:14. and certain hostile Jews set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this temple and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.” And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face shone like the face of an angel.

Acts 7: 1 Then the high priest asked Stephen ‘Is this true?’  

In order for Stephen to defend himself he determined to enter into a detailed account of their history, going back to Abraham, from the commencement of their nation then through to the story of Jacobs son Joseph who was beaten up by his brothers and left abandoned and supposed dead. Joseph was taken to Egypt as a slave of Pharoah who later made him the governor of the entire region. Joseph brought Jacob and his brothers into Egypt, saving them from the famine which was over the land, and there the twelve tribes of Israel grew into a nation. And after Joseph died these tribes became slaves of the Pharaohs for four hundred years. 
Then Moses is born and miraculously preserved from the edict of the cruel ruling Pharaoh to put all the Hebrew children to death, but Moses is saved by Pharaoh’s daughter and brought up in the courts of the Pharaoh and even looked after by his own mother. Moses knows he is called to be a deliverer of his people but one day at forty years of age he recklessly slays an Egyptian who was brutalizing one of his Hebrew brothers and in doing so he alienates his Hebrew brothers who reject him saying 'Who put you in charge of us?'. He is also rejected by the rulers of Egypt and is then forced to flee into the wilderness where he lives in exile for forty years.

We pick up the narrative in verse 32 where God has just spoken to Moses in the wilderness through an angel who appears to him in a burning bush. 

An angel appeared to Moses in the of flames of a burning bush, and Moses heard God's voice: 'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' 
"God said, 'Kneel and pray. You are in a holy place, on holy ground. I've seen the agony of my people in Egypt. I've heard their cries of distress and I've come to help them, and I'm sending you back to Egypt.'
This is the same Moses whom they earlier rejected, saying, 'Who put you in charge of us?' This is the Moses that God sent back as ruler and redeemer. He led them out of their slavery. God did miracles for Israel, at the Red Sea, and out in the wilderness for forty years. Moses told the people
'God will raise up a prophet just like me from your descendants.' This is the Moses who gave the life-giving words of the Commandments to Israel but our fathers resisted them. 
"They made a golden calf-idol and brought sacrifices to it. God let them go on doing it their way, to worship every new god that came across their path—and they lived with the consequences, as described by the prophet Amos: ‘Did you bring me offerings of animals and grain O Israel? Hardly. You were too busy Worshiping war gods and sex goddesses. And I put you into exile in Babylon’.

God had Moses make a tabernacle for true worship, made to God’s exact blueprint. They had it with them as they followed Joshua, when God gave them the land of Canaan, and still had it to the time of David.  David had asked God if he could build a temple for Israel to worship him. 
But God asked Solomon to build his temple. 

And all this resistance by Israel to God’s goodness led Stephen to the conclusion that God could no longer bear with them, and a time of judgment had come upon them. The whole story of Stephen’s defense revolves around the temple, God’s dwelling place where God meets with Mankind. Stephen teaches them through their Scriptures from Isaiah that God was going to one day make a new kind of temple with his own hands. It would be a living temple – God’s people as the temple of the Holy Spirit. 

We then read in verse 48-50. ‘However, the Highest God does not dwell in temples made by the hands of men. ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: What kind of a house will you build for me, says the Lord, or, where is my resting place? (Isaiah 66:1-2) Will not MY HANDS do this?’

Stephen then begins to condemn the council on the two major features of his revelation. First that God’s temple was to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, and secondly that they would come under God’s judgment for always resisting the Holy Spirit. 

51. You are all willful and stubborn, hard of heart and unwilling to listen, always resisting the Holy Spirit. You are doing exactly what your forefathers have always done. They persecuted every prophet sent to them and killed the ones who prophesied of the coming of the Messiah, whom you yourselves have just betrayed and murdered.
53 You were privileged to receive the Commandments - Commandments that you have not even kept. On hearing Stephen say this, they went into a rage, and began snarling at him.
55. But Stephen, full of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, looked up into heaven, and he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56. And he said; ‘I can see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. 57. They all began to yell viciously and put their hands over their ears, rushing at him all together. 58. They dragged him out of the city and stoned him. They laid their outer robes for safe keeping at the feet of a young man called Saul. As they stoned Stephen, he called upon God, saying, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit’
60. He knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not lay this sin upon them.’ He said this, and then he died.

The whole theme of this chapter in Acts is that God has always wanted to dwell with us, not just from a distant heaven, and not just in a church/temple made with human hands where sacred things get done and sung and sacred things are said. His desire is to dwell with us, make his home in us, as we make our home in him. God spoke this over and over in the Scriptures through the prophets as we just saw through what Stephen spoke.
That is why Jesus was called Emmanuel, ‘God with us’.

In the Old Testament the only way that the Holy Spirit could share God’s truth was through the anointed prophets and the way God displayed his power was through his divine supernatural acts of salvation and provision and wonder. All of that Holy Spirit revelation of God’s truth and power was rejected by Israel. Nonetheless God still worked his powerful works of miraculous saving power in supernaturally overcoming the armies of their enemies in front of their very eyes.
God is saying the same thing to his people in these days, whether they go to church or not, or whether they believe or not, or whether they even know God or not. God has sent his Holy Spirit into the world, not just into the church. The church can see itself as a temple made with hands if they want to, but God sees his church as his living temple to express his Holy Spirit within and amongst his people, and Stephen is still speaking today saying ‘do not resist the Holy Spirit’. Each person is also a temple of the Holy Spirit (1Corinthians 3:16, 6:19).
And for those who do not do church or do not know church or do not even know God - God has sent the Holy Spirit. Jesus even told his disciples that it was better for him to go away and leave them so that he could send the Holy Spirit. 

John 16:7 If I do not go away, the HELPER will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me, concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is 
Judged. DEEPER MEANING

To convict the world of sin means to reveal to the heart of everyone the sin in their heart.
That sin [hamartia] causes them to miss the mark of the target for our life - believing in Jesus.

To convict the world of righteousness is to reveal to humanity the heart of harmony and alignment that Jesus has with the Father, and for the Holy Spirit to make that alignment and harmony with the Father the desire of our heart. 

To convict the world of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged means to reveal the overcoming power of Jesus to overcome the darkness and evil that threatens our soul just as God overcame the enemy armies that came against Israel.

Jesus goes on to tell them that when the Holy Spirit came, he would lead them into all truth –taking the things that Jesus says and declaring them unto us.

When mankind resists the work of that HELPER that God has sent for us, the result is a troubled soul. A troubled soul is the spiritual bank vault of all of the stored-up acts of resistance to the HELPER who is struggling in the inner being of every person on Planet Earth to bring God’s love and truth into their lives, as the Scripture declares - the goal of our faith is the saving of the soul (1Peter 1:9).
But we have all learned to make our own helpers to defend ourselves with different kinds of reactions against harm or threats of harm, and these helpers can be very unhelpful to our emotions and our rational thinking and cause our soul a lot of unnecessary suffering. They came into action as we started to grow up – ‘I don’t want to be treated like this so here’s what I’ll do’ - and somewhere these get stuck in our souls and operate on autopilot. Their distress signals are a way that the Holy Spirit tells us that he wants to be our HELPER and to give us grace to not resist him but to receive him. When we open our hearts and minds to hear the HELPER that Jesus and the Father has sent, we begin to experience the salvation of our souls. 
The HELPER helps us to hear the message, believe the message, and to be the message.

Insiders and Outsidrs

INSIDERS and OUTSIDERS

We finished reading in Acts chapter five with the account of the apostles rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus. They continued preaching daily in the temple and proclaiming to all the people this new way of life, which was not just about doing what they were meant to do but about being who they were meant to be. We follow the account of the growth of the emerging church as we come to Chapter six.
 
ACTS 6:1. It was not long before the number of disciples had greatly increased, and the Hellenists (Greek speaking Jews), developed a grudge against the Hebrews. The Greek widows were being neglected in the common daily provision of food and necessary supplies.

Hellenists were the people influenced by ancient Greece with its culture and language and philosophy which all began in the fourth century BC. when Alexander the Great conquered the then known world including Judea. 
Many thousands of Jews were scattered all over the Mediterranean coastal areas and up into Asia Minor, where over a period of time they began to practice a code of Judaism that became even stricter than it was back in Jerusalem. 

Then the Romans conquered all these nations in 65 BC, and Hellenistic Jews were made slaves - but in due time they were set free and became known as the Freedmen. 
The Hellenist Freedmen that we come across in Acts chapter six were descendants of the people that were made slaves by the Romans two generations earlier, and these people worshipped in their own synagogues in Jerusalem. Many traditional Jews back in Jerusalem viewed Greek culture as a threat to their religious identity and resisted Hellenistic influences - thus the underlying conflict.

In the last few chapters, we have been seeing how love was flourishing in this new community of faith. All was good in the new emerging Church, full of power and love - until things went wrong - an act of ‘unlove’ occurred. The widows who were of Greek, or Hellenistic origin were being neglected in the previously ‘loving’ act of the sharing of food and provision amongst the family of God. 
It seemed like it was easier for them to love those that were ethnically and religiously most like themselves and to ignore those that were different. 
This was probably not done on purpose – but it was certainly an act of neglect, and an offence had occurred. 

The Apostles wisely saw this problem as a leadership responsibility, and they dealt with it as such. The solution that the twelve came up with was not to preach against complaining on the one side, or against selfishness on the other side. They had to bring some structure into the administrative side of things so that the people could be more mindful that God was among them, and more alert to the needs of those who were perhaps on the fringe. The offence could be avoided with simple uncomplicated relational and relaxed structures. 

2. The twelve apostles called a meeting of all the believers and addressed the entire assembly to resolve the matter. They explained that it was not up to them to become hands on in the fair distribution of food and goods for the needy and so neglect their ministry in the word of God.
3. So they directed the other disciples to choose from among all the believers, seven upright and honest men who were recognized for their integrity and who were full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. They said they would appoint those men to look after such matters as these.
4. The Apostles explained to the people that they had to give themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of teaching the word.
5. The entire company of believers were happy with that arrangement. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas, a Gentile from Antioch, who was earlier converted to Judaism.
6. They presented these men to the apostles, who first prayed about the choice that had been made, then laid hands on those men and commissioned them.

Nowhere does it say that they were called ‘Deacons’ but it is presumed that these were the ‘first Deacons’. They were also great evangelists – as we see at least in the ministries of Stephen and Philip. This allowed the Apostles to attend to the priority of their calling, of prayer and the ministry of the word. This is the first instance of the doctrine of the laying on of hands for the impartation of grace and appointment to certain callings in the newfound Church. There were wonderful results coming out of that wise decision, as the next verse goes on to say. 

7. Then the word of the Lord spread and reached many, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and many Jewish priests became obedient to the faith.

Nicholas was a Hellenist, being described as ‘Nicholas, a Gentile from Antioch, who was earlier converted to Judaism’, and he no doubt was a good choice in helping the inclusion of some of the outsiders. 
We now see the account of one of these seven men, Stephen, going forth in faith and power, with great wonders and signs following his ministry.

8. Stephen, full of faith and empowered by the Holy Spirit, worked great wonders and miracles among the people.
9. Some of the members of the synagogue of the Freedmen, including men from Cyrene (the home of Simon who carried the cross for Jesus) and Alexandria, and Cilicia (the homeland of Saul of Tarsus) and Asia. They then began to formally debate with Stephen, but they could not prevail against the wisdom of his arguments and the power of the Spirit in his words.

Opposition to Stephen mostly came from those of the ‘Synagogue of the Freedmen’, which was understandable because of their passionate intensity of obedience to the code of the Law and their disapproving perception of the slackness of the traditional Jerusalem Jews. Saul, as well as being a Pharisee was also considered to be a Hellenist with a depth of understanding for the Greek philosophies and culture, and he also would have been involved with their Hellenist synagogue in Jerusalem, and this would also explain his intense condemnation of Stephen. It is evident that he was present for the events surrounding Stephen's trial and execution which we read about in chapters seven and eight, and it is probable that, as a student of the great Gamaliel, he even participated in heated debates with Stephen in the temple.

11. So they (the Freedmen and other Jewish leaders) coaxed men to testify that they had heard him speak blasphemously against Moses and against God, 12. Stirring up hostility against Stephen amongst the people and the Jewish elders who arrested him and brought him before the council.

God had purposed tribalism for Israel because they were a chosen nation that God had laid claim to as his own, forbidding them to mix with other nations, and dealing with their infidelity when they did - They had no choice. Israel as a Nation for 1500 years was the representative of Humanity as a ‘People under God’. They were not to let the outside world in and they thought that meant forever, even though God directed them to welcome the sojourner within their gates – perhaps a foretaste of things to come.

So, into this large flourishing powerful happy church in Jerusalem there began to appear those who were not perhaps regarded as the insiders that that they should be. Many would have remembered Jesus telling the disciples when he sent them out two by two that they were not to go and preach to the Gentiles (Matthew 29). We also see in Acts chapter nine that Peter had great difficulty in going and preaching to the Gentile Centurion Cornelius and his Gentile family. 
God always makes space for a fringe to exist and even though the Hellenists were Jews they were different enough to seem like being a fringe group. This same Tribalism exists today even in Christianity as evidenced by thirty six thousand Protestant denominations, and other religious, and cultural prejudices. All of us in one way or another have experienced being on the fringe – an outsider – what’s going on in there! 
The church in the Book of Acts did not yet understand that Jesus had brought all of humanity into Himself. 
 
How wonderfully strange that the soon to be ‘Paul the Apostle’ now starts to appear on the horizon of God’s plan of salvation for the world.

13. And they instructed these witnesses who said that Stephen had also consistently spoken blasphemously against the holy temple and against the law. 14. They said they had even heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth was going to destroy the holy temple and change the traditions handed down to them by Moses.
15. The council members took Stephen before them to interrogate him and as they questioned him they found themselves gazing at his face which began to shine like the face of an angel.

These were the Jewish opponents who we read about in the next chapter who laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul before they stoned Stephen to death – the Saul that was the soon to become ‘Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles’. In the next chapter we read about Saul hearing the most extraordinary revelation of the plan of salvation through Jesus Christ to the world through Stephen. This revelation that Saul/Paul resisted that day was ordained to come to the Jews first, and then somehow to the whole world – beginning with himself!

This is the Paul who later wrote ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise’ (Galatians 3:28).
No more insiders and outsiders!

Going back to the offence that occurred in the early church where some people felt like ‘outsiders’ who were being overlooked – it shows how easy it is to create division and conflict even when you’re not trying to. We read in verse twelve above the angry and influential people who ‘stirred up hostility against Stephen amongst the people and the Jewish elders.’ This is how a political power agenda seeks to usurp power and influence for their own gain, by causing resentment and division and hostility within a community or group, setting ordinary people against one another. 

When this happens on a large scale it can have global consequences, and it is happening now. We live in times when there seems to be an agenda managed by influential political power brokers of creating a world full of resentful victims that feel badly treated by anybody who is not passionate about constantly affirming their personal special interests. An activist media that trades in conflict, outrage and sensation coaxes voluntary victims into fueling a revolution against an unkown group of hateful non-inclusive oppressors. This spirit of polarization permeates the soul of our society. 

The true enemy is the spirit of blindness over people today, not the feverish people who have been blinded. God wants to reach these people and he is working with you, not to fight a political or religious war against them but to reach them. There is enough love and grace and faith in God’s people today to overcome any of this blindness, firstly within the Church itself, and there is also an abounding grace to hear the cry of distress and to open the eyes of a conflicted world that has never felt so hopeless. 

Philippians 2:14 stay away from complaining and arguing so that no one can speak a word of blame against you. Live God-ordered lives as God’s children in a dark world full of people who are biased and wilful. Shine among them like lights, holding out to them the Word of Life. 

 

 

FIGHTING AGAINST GOD

FIGHTING AGAINST GOD 

We saw in the preceding verses of Acts chapter five how there was such an outpouring of grace and faith through the power of the Holy Spirit working in the church with healings and signs and wonders and the good will of the people in going without, so that they could care for one another’s needs. We also saw how in the example of the judgement upon Ananias and Saphira that there was also great accountability to the Holy Spirit for all that grace and power. 
Crowds were streaming in from the Jerusalem suburbs, bringing their sick folk and those oppressed by evil spirits and every one of them was healed …
And all of this finally caused an angry reaction from the Jewish religious leaders.

Reading on in Acts chapter 5.

Acts 5:17. The high priest and the entire Sadducee group became very indignant. They took hold of the apostles and locked them up in jail.
19. However the angel of The Lord opened up the prison doors and set them free and told them to go and stand in the temple and proclaim to all the people this new way of life.
21. So, upon hearing that, they went into the temple the first thing in the morning and began to teach. At the same time the high priest and all his supporters convened the council and the senate of Israel and decided to send for the prisoners to be brought to them from the prison. But the prison officers went to the prison and found that they were no longer there. So they went back to the council and senate. They told them that the prison was shut securely, and the soldiers were on guard outside the prison doors, but that when they opened the doors, they found that there was nobody there.

24. When the high priests and all the other religious officials heard about this they began to wonder where all this was heading. Then someone came and told them all that the men they had put into prison were back in the temple again, preaching to the people.

The high priest and his other Sadducee officials rejected any belief in the resurrection or angels or other supernatural signs from God. Their religious beliefs were focused on the strict interpretation of the written Torah. But now they were stumped because there were supernatural things happening all around them and they were getting anxious. But this was actually an act of mercy and grace for them also because God was giving these religious leaders a chance to witness God’s power and accept the truth of the Gospel. This brought the high priest and the leaders face to face with reality and an accountability to truth, not to mention the hostility of the multitudes who were being persuaded of the power and glory of God.

26. So the captains and officers of the temple went and discreetly removed the apostles from the place, treating them gently because they were afraid that they might end up getting stoned by the people.
27. They set the apostles before the council and the high priest, and he began to question them; He reminded them that they had been forbidden to teach anything in that name, charging them that they had filled Jerusalem with their doctrine, and were even planning to bring the blood guilt of Jesus upon them.

Somewhere in their strangely superstitious yet unbelieving minds they were anxious that a curse of blood guilt would be cast upon them. Religious superstition and legalism  is a curse in itself, as it cuts off the flow of spiritual blessing (Galatians 1:9).

29. Peter and the other apostles reiterated; ‘We have to obey God rather than men.’

30. The God of our ancestors resurrected Jesus, whom you put to death upon a cross.
31. God has given him the most exalted of all positions, as the Prince and Saviour of Israel to give them a new heart and mind and total cancellation of all their sins.
32. We are witnesses of all of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has bestowed upon all that become subject to his authority.

33. When the religious leaders of Israel heard that they were infuriated, and they determined to put them to death.
34. Then Gamaliel, one of the Pharisees of the council, who was a teacher and interpreter of the Law, and held in high esteem among the people, commanded that the apostles be detained outside of the meeting for the time being. 

Gamaliel was a Pharisee and unlike the Sadducees he did believe in a resurrection. He was also the tutor of Paul when he was a Pharisee. Paul mentions that he sat at the feet of Gamaliel in Acts 22:3. 

Gamaliel then addressed the meeting and said: ‘Be careful, you leaders of Israel, about what you do with these men, because it was not so long ago that Theudas gave himself some kind of self-appointed significance and gathered a following of some four hundred men. He ended up being killed and all his followers were scattered, and it all came to nothing. Then another self-appointed ruler called Judas of Galilee rose up, in the days of the taxing, and he also had quite a crowd following him. He died too, and his followers were scattered. So what I am telling you all is that you should leave these men alone, because if what they have been saying and what they have been doing is just the work of men, it will come to nothing; 

39. But if it is of God, you are powerless to stop it; and you will find yourselves fighting against God himself.’

40. They listened to what Gamaliel had to say and they agreed. So they called the apostles back, had them beaten, and commanded them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then let them go. The apostles left the council and went on their way, rejoicing to be counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus and they continued to teach and preach about Jesus Christ every day in the temple, and in all the houses round about the region.

Peter’s words earlier in the chapter were “We ought to obey God rather than men.’ (vs29).
They were appointed to preach the Gospel and they had to obey God even if it meant breaking a civil law. The Gospel that they preached was powerful and it was confirmed by God in an undeniably supernatural way. It was therefore a threat to the religious and civil power base of the day. It was more than just speech that was unpopular or offensive to the rights or special interests of others in the community.

They were quite happy to suffer the consequences of disobeying the law of man in order to obey God. It was up to God to either set them free by sending an angel or to let them stay there for however long he wanted them to be there. They knew they were doing God’s work wherever they were. Paul spent a long time ‘doing time’ in jail for God, knowing that God had ordained it, but if God had wanted him to escape confinement God would organize it, as we see in Acts chapter nine when Paul first started preaching in Damascus after being converted and was confined inside the city - his friends lowered him down a wall in a basket to escape being killed by those hostile to his preaching. God works all of these things out his way – it is his Gospel, and his power.

Paul spoke about this principle of obeying God first even if you go to jail for it, when he wrote to the Roman church ‘Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities’ (Romans 13:1,also 1Peter 2:13 ; submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake’). 
A person can obey God first and also be subject to the governing authorities even when they disobey a civil law as long as they accept the legal consequences of it in the civil courts. It is then put into God’s hands. 
 
There are Christians preaching the Gospel today in countries where it is illegal to do so, and they cannot lobby the government about freedom of speech to preach because they don’t get to vote. In a Western democracy Christians today lobby the government for legalizing freedom of speech to further the work of the Gospel, the way that they feel sincere about - and they can feel irate if they are denied this freedom. As Christians people can vote as citizens in a democracy with the hope that their sincere requests for freedom of speech for their cause will be granted, and if it is they rejoice, but there is no guarantee from God. Faith is not about wishful thinking or political power. There was never any politically sanctioned freedom of speech in the Book of Acts.  

But if you really have a Gospel of power, and not just a political opinion about your religious rights or your self-importance it doesn’t matter what the government of the day is - nobody can stop the power of the Gospel from going forth and accomplishing what God intends for it to achieve. This might bring about distressing opposition and personal suffering but being counted worthy to share in the sufferings of Christ in this way releases great power from Heaven - and it brings about God’s outcomes for his glory. When people fight against God, God wins.

 

 

 

SIGNS OF THE SACRED

SIGNS OF THE SACRED
The phenomenon of the power of gracious giving that occurred in Acts chapter four where they had ‘all things in common’ was a sign that God had poured out great grace and faith upon the people that displayed itself in a love and care for one another in their differing needs. The last verse in Acts chapter four says ‘Joseph, called by the apostles "Barnabas" (which means "Son of Comfort"), a Levite born in Cyprus, sold a field that he owned, brought the money, and made an offering of it to the apostles. This would indicate that he would have kept his house and any necessities for his upkeep and donated the proceeds of selling a field. That intense outpouring of grace lasted for a limited period of time and appears to have not been seen since. These early chapters of Acts show the contest of the mighty activity of the grace and power of the kingdom of God over and against the power of the world. Reading on in Chapter five…

ACTS 5:1. But a man named Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, who connived with him, sold a piece of land, and secretly kept part of the price for himself, and then brought the rest to the apostles and made an offering of it. Peter said, "Ananias, how did Satan get you to lie to the Holy Spirit and secretly keep back part of the price of the field? Before you sold it, it was all yours, and after you sold it, the money was yours to do with as you wished. So what got into you to do a thing like this? You didn't lie to men but to God." Ananias, when he heard those words, fell down dead. That put the fear of God into everyone who heard of it. The younger men went right to work and wrapped him up, then carried him out and buried him. Not more than three hours later, his wife, knowing nothing of what had happened, came in. Peter said, "Tell me, were you given this price for your field?" "Yes," she said, "that was the price." Peter responded, "What's going on here that you connived to conspire against the Spirit of the Lord? The men who buried your husband are at the door, and you're next." No sooner were the words out of his mouth than she also fell down, dead. When the young men returned they found her body. They carried her out and buried her beside her husband. So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things.

When there is a great grace and faith through the power of the Holy Spirit there is also great accountability to the Holy Spirit for that grace. Such was the accountability in the case of Ananias and Saphira that eternal judgement came upon them through the apostle Peter because of their lying to the Holy Spirit. That grace and power and authority is not resident in the Church today. The Bible says to us for you are not under law but under grace (Romans 6).The difference between being under the Law in the Old Testament and being under Grace in the New Testament might at first appear to mean that judgment is less harsh in the New Testament. However the power given to those people in the Book of Acts through the grace of the indwelling empowerment of the Ho]y Spirit required a far greater accountability for obedience than being under the Law and commandants in the Old Testament. Grace is the power that enables us to do God’s will. Grace is not a soft pretext for not doing God’s will.
This act of judgment had a very profound effect on people still in the process of making up their minds whether to ’join the Church’ or not (Vs.11)

12. And through the ministry of the apostles many signs and wonders were done amongst the people, who continued to gather together in great unity of heart and mind in the covered portico inside Solomon’s temple. Unbelievers did not dare try to join the body of believers (I wonder why not!). They just looked on and marveled at them. When people look on and marvel at something spectacular it is more like watching a side show – it is not worshipping God.
It is interesting that the display of God’s power drew many into the Kingdom of God as believers but was resisted by many who did not want the control of their own lifestyles interfered with, especially when it comes to money - the universal power and control agency. That power and control is very easily corrupted, as we all well know. 
13. However multitudes of people, both men and women, became believers through all of this and were added to the Lord.
But those who did believe had such a need for God in their needy lives that they wanted to be anywhere that the glory of God was on display, and they became worshippers.

15. Such was their faith that they brought sick people out into the streets and laid them on stretchers in the hope that the shadow of Peter walking past might overshadow them. Many people also came out of the towns round about Jerusalem, bringing sick people who were afflicted by evil spirits and they were all healed.

It does not say that the shadow of Peter actually caused the healing but something was happening in people’s hearts in drawing them near to God in their heartfelt desire to be touched by the power of God, so faith began to operate. It was like the Gentile woman who pushed through the crowd to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment and was healed, and Jesus felt her faith in operation within his Spirit. And he commended her for her great faith. There are many incidences of these signs of external sacred things that evoke faith in the hearts of people who want to draw near to God in faith. The word sacred (hieros) means dedicated or consecrated to God, holy. The word sacred is where we get the word sacrament from, as in the sacrament of Communion. 

When James recommended that elders anoint those who were sick with oil he said ‘let the elders pray over them, anointing with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will heal/save (sozo) the sick (James 5:14). It is not the oil that heals or the garment of Jesus that heals or Peter’s shadow – it is faith. James also said in the same chapter ‘draw near to God and he will draw near to you.’ These occurrences were all occasions or opportunities for drawing near to God so that faith in the work of Jesus could be found. It was not to point to the sacred object but to Jesus. 
It is only when people attribute power to the object or to some person that it becomes superstition, something like magical thinking, and a lot of that thrived in those days and continues to do so. But sacred objects have served their purpose, if only to draw our hearts to desire to draw near to Jesus in faith, but not to be worshipped in themselves. We see these sacred signs further on in Acts and in the epistles.
 
Acts 19:11 God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.

Most people would have believed in Jesus for those handkerchief healings but there would have been some people who may have attributed the power to the handkerchiefs, and others may have attributed the power to Paul. And at the same time that was happening in Acts 19, there were some men present, called the sons of Sceva, that saw what was going on. They tried casting out demons in the name of Jesus that Paul had been proclaiming. They thought that they could evoke that power to cast out demons by using the name of Paul and the name of Jesus and it backfired on them, because the demon answered them, and said “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” The evil spirit then jumped on them and beat them up. They were using the name of God (and Paul) in vain. Just using the name of Jesus is not faith unless one has a living faith in the life of Jesus within them that is working God’s will through them by his grace.

Paul writes to Timothy and says ‘from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings of the Scriptures, (Old Testament) which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus’. (2Timothy 3:15). The Scriptures are indeed sacred but notice here that the active key phrase is ‘through faith in Christ Jesus’, because faith comes through the Spirit of the word and not the letter. The words must impart the living faith of those that speak it, and the Holy Spirit can impart spiritual life and witness to the word as a person reads it.

Some people believe that there is supernatural power resident in the bread and wine of what is called the Sacrament of Holy Communion. But the power is entirely of our faith in drawing near to God in remembrance of Who Jesus is and what he has done for us and what he is doing for us in the here and now – that is faith and that is our Communion with Jesus and with one another as we gather and partake of the bread and the cup. The grace of God is present and to be called upon, as we give thanks for the presence of God with us, and for the blessing and healing of body, soul and spirit upon each other. Amen

All Things in Common

ALL THINGS IN COMMON 
In the second half of Acts chapter 4 Peter and John were set free from custody by the council of Jewish leaders for preaching in the power of the name of Jesus and miraculously healing the crippled man at the temple. This had caused thousands of people to join themselves to the Church, and the religious and the secular power base of the Jewish leaders was now even more threatened, but they had no option to letting them go because of the fervour of the crowd’s recognition of the power of God. 

Reading on in chapter four.
Acts 4:23. When they were released, they went back to their friends and told them everything that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When their fellow disciples heard that, they began to speak out with one voice to God. They prayed ‘Lord you are God, who has made the Heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that exists. This is who David was talking about when he said ‘Why do people get into such an uproar and fill their minds with useless ideas?’ World leaders give themselves a high and mighty place and plan together to outdo God and outshine his anointed Christ. The same way that Herod and Pontius Pilate, with both Israel and all the unbelievers opposed the holy child, Jesus when he did what you Lord, had decided to achieve through him, according to your own will and purpose.
 And Lord, look at what they are doing now. Give us, who want to serve you, courage and confidence to speak out your word. And confirm your word by stretching out your hand to heal, and let signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy child Jesus. 
When they finished that prayer the place where they were praying began to shake. 
Vs.31. They were all filled with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and they went from there speaking out the word of God with great confidence.

The disciples were ecstatic to realize that God was in charge of everything that happened in the world and that no secular power could stand against God and topple the power of his Kingdom. This new Kingdom was not reliant upon political power or money to influence or to overcome the power of the world – only the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers would win that victory. They knew that the plans of world leaders to outdo God and outshine his anointed Christ’ would eventually fail. After they prayed for the power of God to come upon them they went out confidently speaking the anointed word of God that the Holy Spirit spoke into their hearts and minds - by direct revelation of the living words to them either from Jesus directly, or words that were written in the Law and the Prophets that were revelations of the life of Jesus as the Christ (As yet there was no New Testament narrative).

Three hundred years after this mighty explosion of the power of the Kingdom of God the Church became a secular power under the rule of the Roman emperor Constantine and from then on a secular and political Papal power ruled that kingdom/empire alongside other secular political powers. However, there has always been a river of life flowing through believers whose faith has lifted them into living in the power of the Kingdom of God. The reformation brought great spiritual change but did nothing to change the political status of the Church and simply divided believers up into other existing secular states and regions. 
Let our prayer be like those of the disciples in the Book of Acts. ‘And Lord, look at what they are doing now. Give us, who want to serve you, courage and confidence to speak out your word. And confirm your word by stretching out your hand to heal, and let signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy child Jesus. They were all filled with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and they went from there speaking out the word of God with great confidence.

We read in the next verse about another phenomenon of the power of God in their midst which was the loving care that believers demonstrated towards those who were in need.
Vs.32. All the believers were of one heart and mind, and no one felt that what he owned was his own; everyone was sharing. And the apostles preached powerful sermons about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and there was warm fellowship among all the believers, and no poverty—for all who owned land or houses sold them and brought the money to the apostles to give to others in need. This was the fruit of the Spirit of faith that worked through love – there was no legalism involved.

The only attempt in history to establish a system of economic equity or egalitarianism was Marxist Communism which tried to create a classless society and abolish private ownership of property and private businesses and production. Its ideological slogan was ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’. It swept up millions of people in the 20th century in Russia and eastern Europe and China and other parts of Asia and it was born out of the anger and resentment of oppressed people against a powerful wealthy class – not out of love and compassion. 
This revolution led to bloodshed and war and failed in every aspect of its ideological slogan. Over 100 million lives were lost during that time because of tyrannical State leadership. Forms of this kind of social justice are tragically imposing themselves upon our present culture as neo Marxism which has expanded the categories of victims of oppression that that the so called ruling class exercises - making everyone a victim including whatever the ruling class is.

There is only one other place in the Bible that depicts the kind of unity and Godly equity of sharing that is seen in Acts chapter 4. It is seen in the Book of Nehemiah. It portrays the caring and sharing of our God given giftings and anointings that bring grace and blessing instead of resentment and coercion. And it is not just about money. 
When God’s people were released from their seventy-year oppressive bondage in Babylon many returned to Jerusalem over a period of some years, to rebuild the city and the temple. Ninety years after the first migration back a prophet named Nehemiah who was still living in Babylon/Persia received news from his Jewish brothers back in Jerusalem that the city was still in ruins and its walls still broken down. He grieves and weeps over this and prays to God for guidance and favour. God gives him favour in the eyes of King Artaxerxes where he held a high position in the king’s court, and the king sends him back to rebuild the city, appointing him as the Persian/Jewish Governor of Judah.

But when Nehemiah first arrived and did a thorough survey of what was going on he became disappointed and angry when he saw some unfair treatment to the poor and the vulnerable where many of the poorer families in Judah had to mortgage fields and vineyards and borrow money at high interest from their Jewish brothers who were nobles and officials. 
So Nehemiah took action, and he admonished the nobles and officials and told them that what they were doing was not good in the eyes of God. The people changed their hearts in the fear of the Lord and began to share together in caring for one another in each other’s needs.
Nehemiah was then able to inspire the Jewish people to work together with a new kind of spiritual unity where families and groups were assigned to sections of the wall and everyone gave of their energy and their different skills, with a sword by their side and ready to defend each other against enemy attacks. And this brought great blessing from God upon them all.

That story of the rebuilding of the city and the walls of Jerusalem and God’s house, the temple, speaks to us today of God wanting to build us together as his spiritual Jerusalem and spiritual temple, not just the timber and stones and building materials. The Bible says that you yourselves are like living stones being built up as his spiritual house (1 Peter 2:4). So let that temple be rebuilt – yours first – you are the temple of the Holy Spirit and he wants to tell you what Jesus wants you to hear in the temple - your temple - your house of prayer (1Corinthians 6:19). This is what those early disciples expected to hear, and they heard God speak to them and they spoke it out and God confirmed. 

One feature of Nehemiah’s rebuilding process was the re-using of the rubble as repurposed building material instead of discarding it as damaged useless debris. For us this represents the Holy Spirit putting back together the fragmented parts of ourselves that were damaged because of affliction and loss and are now being transformed into something valuable and meaningful through the healing power of the Holy Spirit. I see this healing and salvation of the soul happening in people’s lives. God restores lost and damaged things and transforms them into new things that hold a future and a hope.
Let us be God’s temple individually and as God’s gathered people today as we sit in his presence.
2Chronicles 6:29 whatever prayer or plea is made by anyone or by all your people, each knowing their own affliction and their own sorrow and stretching out their hands in this temple, then hear from heaven your dwelling place and forgive and render to each whose heart you know, according to their own pathways, for you, you only, know the hearts of the children of mankind. AMEN.

 

If I Be Lifted Up

IF I BE LIFTED UP 
In Acts chapter three we saw that Peter and John had prayed for the healing of a well-known crippled man who used to beg daily at the gate of the temple and was now leaping about and praising God. A crowd of onlookers continued to grow with all of them standing about amazed at the miracle that had occurred, and Peter was preaching to the growing crowd about the resurrection of Jesus.
Acts 4: 1. While they were still speaking to the people, the priests and the Temple Captain and the Sadducees stormed in. They were offended and worked up that Peter was preaching to the people, and teaching about the resurrection from the dead through Jesus - so they arrested Peter and John and put them in custody until the next day because it was now time for the evening watch in the temple. However, many of the people had already heard the word being preached, and about five thousand people had now become believers (WOW). Then the next morning, the rulers and elders and scribes and Annas the high priest and Caiaphas, and the family group of the high priest came together for a meeting at Jerusalem. They stood Peter and John before them and began to question them. They asked by what power and under whose name or authority had they performed this healing. Peter was full of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and he said; ‘All you rulers and elders of Israel, if this is some investigation into what caused this wonderful thing to happen to this weak and crippled man I want to inform you all, and indeed all the people of Israel, that this man stands before you totally healed today through the power and the authority of the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified - and whom God raised up from the dead. Salvation comes through no other person, or through any other name under heaven. Through him alone are we saved.’  When they saw the fearless confidence of Peter and John, who were ordinary looking men and obviously uneducated, they were astonished. They recognized them as being among the disciples of Jesus. Then when they looked at the totally healed man standing there next to them, there was nothing left for them to say. However when they dismissed them under guard from the council they began to discuss the matter among themselves and they said to one another ‘What are we to do with these men? It is obvious to everybody in Jerusalem that an undeniable miracle has occurred, but we cannot let this spread any further amongst the people, so we had better warn them severely that they are absolutely forbidden to speak to anybody in that name. So they called Peter and John back in again and forbade them to say anything to anybody or to teach anything in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John said ‘You judge for yourselves whether it is right for us to listen to what God says or to listen to what you say but we can only say what we have truly seen and heard.’ So they threatened them and warned them once again and then they let them go. They realized that they could not punish them for any wrongdoing in front of all those people, because all the people were glorifying God for what had been done.

This was the first example of ‘cancel culture’ in the Bible. The power base of the leaders of Israel had been massively threatened, so the leaders had to put a stop to Peter and John’s preaching to the crowds about the power of Jesus, but they couldn’t deny the power. The Jewish leaders had crucified Jesus but that had not stopped the power and authority from working through his name from Heaven. They wanted to put down the name of Jesus and Peter was determined to lift him up (today people in the world use the name of Jesus almost as much as God’s people – they use it as a swear word and we use it as a word of praise – one way puts him down and the other way lifts him up. Jesus himself had said that if he was lifted up he would draw all men unto himself, and when Peter lifted him up that day the Jewish leaders had seen five thousand people get drawn to Jesus before their very eyes.
Jesus said to a man called Nicodemus, a prominent Jewish leader who came to visit him one night, ‘as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him would have eternal life’ [John 3:15]. Nicodemus had come to acknowledge that Jesus was indeed from God, saying that no one could do those signs if God wasn’t with him. Jesus went on to say to Nicodemus that God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Jesus knew that Nicodemus was a learned teacher of the Jews, and he knew that he would be very familiar with the story of Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness.

That story is in the Book of Numbers chapter twenty one and it describes how the Israelites were journeying through the wilderness after being freed from slavery in Egypt, and they grew impatient and began complaining against God and Moses, expressing their discontent with the food and water in the wilderness. They even said ‘and we hate this boring manna’. So God sent poisonous snakes among them to punish them, and many of them suffered by being bitten and many died. The people came to their senses and approached Moses, confessing their wrongdoing and asking for help and for God to take away the snakes. In response, God instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent and mount it on a pole and to lift it high (bronze in the Bible speaks of judgment) - then anyone who had been bitten by a snake would simply look at the bronze serpent and be healed.

Nicodemus would have understood the meaning of the poisonous serpents, and their comparison with the serpent that God allowed into the garden and who poisoned the hearts and minds of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. That serpent tempted Adam and Eve to become discontent with God’s provision for them and to want something that their deceived imaginations told them would satisfy them better. The soul of humanity was poisoned that day and from that time forward mankind has lived with the discontent of never having enough and of life never having enough meaning or purpose.

Jesus took the place of that bronze serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness and when he is lifted up in our hearts and minds, he heals our souls from the poison of the darkness that deceives our minds and hearts. And he gets rid of the snakes so that in trusting in him we can be protected from evil.
All the people had to do in the wilderness was to look at the serpent. They didn’t have to do a dance or offer sacrifices – just simply look.

For us this means that we simply perceive and believe in our hearts and minds that Jesus has taken away the judgment of our sins and given us his life to heal our souls because of all the wrong choices that we have made that have caused us so much suffering and anxiety, and robbed our souls of meaning and purpose. Jesus said to Nicodemus that whoever believes in him should not perish (apollymi) but have eternal life - perishing means wasted, ruined, not fit for purpose. Perishing is being stuck in a life that lacks meaning and purpose here on earth – that is being lost and destroyed - and the opposite of perishing and being lost and destroyed is being saved in our souls.

Jesus also said to Nicodemus ‘God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him’.

We don’t have to look at a serpent or a statue or anything else. For us to look at Jesus means to fix and focus our hearts and minds upon him as the highest who came to be with the lowest. So our minds humbly ask God to reveal to us who Jesus is, who loves us and died for us and desires to live within us. And our hearts wait in surrender to be drawn closer into loving relationship with him.

As we sit in his presence today we will ask the the things of earth to grow stranhely dim. We can see Jesus in a room through a window and we can go in and sit with him and ask things of earth stay outside. We sit with Jesus and turn our eyes of faith upon him - things of earth might tap on the window and want to come in but you can close the curtain and ask Holy Spirit to help you hear from Jesus in your mind and in your heart. 

Healing Rain of Revival

HEALING RAIN REVIVAL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT  

When Peter said on the Day of Pentecost that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was what the prophet Joel was speaking about, he quoted from Joel - ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh (all people). That is what happened. That was the start of the ‘last days’ outpouring, but Peter did not quote what Joel finally said in his prophecy about the end of the last days outpouring of his Spirit. Joel said that a greater outpouring of his Spirit would precede the event of ‘The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.’ The Holy Spirit did not tell Peter to quote that part about the end-time final outpouring because that was not the time of the Lord’s second coming, so there is a gap of time between the first outpouring and the final greater outpouring and we are still living in that time gap.

Joel does explain the gap between the two outpourings however when he compares the outpouring of the Spirit to the falling of the former and latter rains upon the earth that occurred every year agriculturally for Israel. Every year there was a long period of the dry months from one harvest festival to the next, when the land weathered and became hardened, and it needed a moderate former rain to fall to soften the earth before sowing and then there would be a latter rain that would ripen the crop before harvesting. Joel says in his prophecy that the final outpouring of God’s Spirit would bring both former and latter rains to come at the same time - He has appointed you the former rain moderately, And He will cause the former rain and the latter rain to come down in the same month. That Is a double portion outpouring.

It is clear that we have not seen the final great and awesome day of the Lord – and we have not seen the final and great outpouring of the Spirit, even though we have had times of refreshing and revivals through many former rain outpourings of God’s Spirit since Pentecost. When the former and latter rains fall upon us in their due time as a double portion of the Holy Spirit the former rain will soften the hearts of people and the latter rain will ripen the fruit of the Spirit of love and peace and joy and bring healing to our souls.

The story in Joel about God’s people going their own way and then being drawn back to God is the archetype or the model of our journey of life for all of us as individuals. We start off on the right track relatively speaking, and then we make our way on our own journey with our own ideas of what is best for us, despite what anyone else’s version is of what we should do. That can get us into trouble and grief – we make wrong choices through lack of wisdom, and we also get wounded through lack of understanding about relationships - and our heart can become hardened over time and the seed of God’s word of life cannot penetrate it – the seasons of dryness of the heart. Sometimes God has to break up that parched weathered ground with tough love (the dealings of a loving Father God), but his preferred remedy is his mercy and grace in sending the rain of the Holy Spirit to soften our hearts and draw us back to himself. 

The book of Hosea is also a story of both Israel and the Church as God’s people who go through times of falling away from God and being made desolate - and they too then turn back to God in their time of affliction and are revived. God says to Israel after they have been stubbornly going astray that he is going to leave them to themselves to go their own way and that he will go and return to his place (Heaven) - and that In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me. 

Hosea 5:15 God says, I will return again to My place till they acknowledge their offense.
Then they will seek My face; In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me. And then they will say "Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us but he will heal us; he has afflicted us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going from us is established as the morning, and He will come to us like the rain, like the former and latter rain to the earth.

Hosea is also talking about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that Joel spoke of. 
When God left Israel and returned to his place (Heaven) he was giving them time to consider their ways in their afflictions and to seek his face and return to him. In due course Israel will receive the healing of their souls from the former and latter rains of the Holy Spirit so that they can be revived and live in his presence.

The last time that God said to his people that he would return and go to his place was when Jesus spoke to his disciples before his ascension into Heaven.
John 14:2 I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also… the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you… These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world… My prayer for all of them is that they will be of one heart and mind, just as you and I are, Father—that just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me.
 
The great and awesome day of the Lord is always getting closer no matter when you say it but we're living in days when there are worse things happening in the world than ever before. We will see not only more darkness and tribulation in the earth than ever before, but I have an expectation to see more spiritual activity of the Holy Spirit than we have seen before in past visitations of God since Pentecost, and I believe we're in the beginnings of that right now. Too many good words have been spoken and have fallen on deaf ears and hard hearts, but the works of God are going to become more manifest and that will open people’s eyes and give them ears that are ready to hear in the days in which we live. And while the double portion of healing rains is softening the wounded hearts the fruit of the Spirit will speedily become evident in transformed hearts and minds.
The Bible says that Workers will still be harvesting when it is time to plough the fields again. They will still be trampling the grapes when it is time for a new crop. Sweet wine will drip from the mountains and pour from the hills (Amos 9:13).
As you walk your steady path of grace and truth and love you can expect God to overtake you and go ahead of you.