Chapter 5
I am not sure that I can even imagine living in this day & time; the church in just a few days has had an absolute revolution take place. Men and women by the thousands were surrendering to God. Sickness and diseases were healed. The lame were walking. Prison doors were literally being walked through! The demon possessed were set free, and now this incredible FEAR of God has been awakened!
Now we see an insatiable appetite for power, prestige, and recognition that led Ananias to his immediate death. Then his wife, Sapphira dropped dead because of her lies. I can't even imagine over a couple of bucks, Ananias & Sapphira were willing to risk it all for some sort of plaque or title. But they did and they lost!
They lied to God and fell down and died. WOW!
How many times have we lied to God? How many times have we tried and pretended to be pure in heart in prayer but it was all a facade? How many times have we lied and told others God told me this, or that and you knew darn well that God has not spoken anything, it just sounded like the right thing to say? How many times do we chose the lie to get ourselves out of tight situations?
Lies, lies, and more lies so easily fill our mouths!
But verse 11 tells us that: Great Fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events. (The greek word for GREAT is: Megas meaning mass and weight. The greek word for FEAR is: Phobos meaning fear, dread, terror; that which strikes terror.)
We like to think of the fear of God as this quiet reverence but fear is so much more than quiet reverence, it Megas Phobos; mass fear and terror that is incredibly weighty.
Their hearts were struck with terror, they were dreadfully afraid of God.
We need to be a people who have Megas Phobos for our God!
"Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being." Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Great fear seized the whole church and all those who heard about these events."
ReplyDeleteI agree that the FEAR spoken of here is terror and not the reverence we so often hear about. Obviously we must revere God, but the majority of us don't understand or don't want to know what FEAR really is when it comes to God because we have not experienced those things that are spoken of in this chapter in our personal lives.
I have to believe that most would FEAR God if they saw someone drop dead because of something they did or said against Him.
There would still be those, however, who would try to stifle God's power by eliminating those who were manifesting it.
Gamileal, in his speech to the Sanhedrin, had it right. If it was of man, it would stop, but if it was of God, then it would be futile to try and stop it. They would only be fighting against God.
In their arrogance, however, they still gave Peter and John instructions to stop and had them flogged, for which Peter and John rejoiced because they were considered worthy enough to suffer for Christ.
WOW!!!!
In today's world, at least in America, it seems that we are not in tune with a true FEAR of God. We are constantly looking for His blessings, not realizing that they could come in the form of suffering.
Lord help me to understand!!!
JV
As the early church was being formed we see the first youth ministry event. They called the "young men" to bury the dead. That might draw some teens to church! That's a youth pastor's point of view of course.
ReplyDeleteSome verses in this chapter that caught my attention were:
"...and they were all healed."
" Great fear gripped the entire church and all others who heard what had happened."
"No one else dared to join them, though everyone had high regard for them."
I think it's really easy to read this book and think why isn't MY church that way? As valid as that question is, I think it has to start with: "Am I more desperate for God now, than I ever have been?" For these men and women the answer was undoubtedly yes! Desperation led them to prayer, giving away possessions, suffering for the Message and to living life with complete abandonment.
If there isn’t desperation in my pursuit of God then I can take Him or leave Him. I can put on my Christianity when I want to and ignore the parts of God that I don’t like. As He demonstrated in this chapter He will NOT be trifled with. He may not kill me when I live this way, but I kill my purpose and I hurt His church when I pretend that I serve a god that I can manage.
I have read this book multiple times and as a child the lessons where focused on consequenses of our actions when we do not obey God's word, but going through the book this morning verses 12 to 16 caught my attention.
ReplyDeleteWe see the common theme continued of miracles performed and people getting healed.People could see something tangible and it was all a result of hummility and obedience bound by unfounded unselfishness.The people believed.
What great faith that people brought the sick that Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he passed buy.
At the end of the day we are still responsible for the choices that we make and the whole time God knows what is really siting in our hearts regardless of how we act and what we say, or even peoples perception.
At the end of the day God gets the glory. It's amazing how god can use every situation to give himself glory. "Oh and just in case you all forgot, this is all about me"- God. He teaches us in every situation. Listening to sports radio you hear that one thing people hate is bandwagon fans. Those that wanna jump in and get what they want until something doesn't go their way. Maybe God was getting rid of the bandwagon Christians and strengthening the real ones at the same time. You gotta admit That's pretty cool.
ReplyDelete