Monthly Archives: July 2019

THE BOOK OF ACTS – DADDY DIDN’T TELL ME TO DO THAT

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DADDY DIDN’T TELL ME TO DO THAT

“They had a story to tell too. ’And just look at what’s been happening here — thousands upon thousands of God-fearing Jews have become believers in Jesus! But there’s also a problem because they are more zealous than ever in observing the laws of Moses. They’ve been told that you advise believing Jews who live surrounded by Gentiles to go light on Moses, telling them that they don’t need to circumcise their children or keep up the old traditions. This isn’t sitting well with them.” Acts 21:20-21 (The Message).

Tradition versus truth; culture versus Christ! This issue is as old as the church itself and older. It was the struggle Jesus had with His religious opponents then, and it continues to this day.

The Judaisers were a sect of Christianity which insisted on obedience to the Mosaic Law as a condition for salvation. They not only adhered to it themselves but they also imposed it on Gentile believers. The sign of their compliance was circumcision. Gentiles had to submit to circumcision first before they could be a part of the church.

Paul quickly recognised the danger in this practice. He wrote a heated letter to the church in Galatia which was being harassed by these false teachers, exposing the error and implications of this teaching. To add anything to the work of Jesus on the cross was to nullify the grace of God and plunge people back into slavery to the law which was unable to deliver them from the power of their sinful natures.

Tradition can be a powerful weapon in the devil’s arsenal if it is believed above the Word of God. Take, for example, the so-called “Christian” festivals of Christmas and Easter. The very names of these seasons have deep roots in paganism and the occult. If anyone mentions this truth, the heckles of many Christians rise, and they fiercely defend what they are doing because they believe they are celebrating the birth and death of Jesus.

But the church is doing exactly what God hated and opposed in His own people. In both kingdoms, Judah and Israel, the people worshipped God, so they thought, by doing it their way, mixing their pagan practices with the God who had revealed Himself to them. What was the fruit of this mixture? Social injustice, oppression of the poor and wicked living. They even went as far as burning their children to the god, Molech in the name of worship.

We only have to look at the fruit of these “Christian celebrations” to identify their root — wasteful use of God’s resources, drunkenness, gluttony, debt, carnage on the roads, loneliness, suicide, greed, discontent and so much more. The fruit always exposes the root.

If we have embraced Jesus and bowed to Him as Lord, we don’t need a day or a season to remember either His birth or His death. Who He is and what He did is woven into the very fabric of our lives. He told us how and when to remember His death — through baptism and the Lord’s Supper. “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” 1 Corinthians 11:26 (NIV).

Jesus told the Pharisees, ‘You nullify the word of God by your tradition.’ It is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that gives us access to the Father and to the grace that accepts us because of Him. Any effort on our part to win the favour of God by obeying laws or trying to impress Him by our “goodness”, cancels His grace, puts us back into slavery, and separates us from Him again.

Slavish adherence to traditions like Christmas and Easter are only the tip of the iceberg. How many other traditions have crept into the church from the world that have nothing to do with what Jesus came to do and to tell. How much religion is there in our belief systems that occupy us and distract us from the true worship of God?

James puts it in a nutshell: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27 (NIV).

We must never fall for any lie that overrides God’s Word and sets human wisdom or tradition above what He has said. His Word is our standard. Let’s follow our Master who told the devil, ‘Daddy didn’t tell me to do that!’

THE BOOK OF ACTS – ONE

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ONE

“We saw that we weren’t making even a dent in his resolve, and gave up. ’It’s in God’s hands now,’ we said. ‘Master, you handle it.’

“It wasn’t long before we had our luggage together and were on our way to Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us and took us to the home of Mnason, who received us warmly as his guests. A native of Cyprus, he had been among the earliest disciples.

“In Jerusalem, our friends, glad to see us, received us with open arms. The first thing next morning, we took Paul to see James. All the church leaders were there. After a time of greeting and small talk, Paul told the story, detail by detail, of what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. They listened with delight and gave God the glory.” Acts 21:14-19 (The Message).

Jesus’ first words to would-be disciples on the brink of His public ministry were, ‘Follow me,’ and His final instruction to them on His return to the Father was, ‘Go, and make disciples.’ In the intervening years, the apostles carried out His mandate faithfully. Now, as they met together in Jerusalem many years after that day, they were sharing the stories of their obedience.

Not only were there pockets of disciples in many cities and towns across the Roman Empire, but they were also all disciples — followers of Jesus. The apostles were careful to attach people to Jesus and not to themselves, and they also ensured that God’s Word was their source book, not human reason or personal interpretation or experience.

The result was that the church was one body made up of cells all over the empire. There is no evidence of conflicting denominations or fragmentations based on human leaders pulling people away from Jesus. The potential was there; the writers of the New Testament letters were careful and diligent to put out the fires of division and conflict that were constantly being lit by unscrupulous counterfeit disciples.

But among the true believers and the church leaders there was unity based on their loyalty to and love of one Master. When Paul told his story to the leaders of the church in Jerusalem, they could celebrate and rejoice with him because they shared the joy of what God had done through him. It was not Paul’s work. It was God’s work and Paul happened to be one of the vessels God had used.

But Paul was only one among many who were sowing the seeds of God’s Word wherever they went. He blazed the trail for others to follow. He wrote letters to churches that other faithful evangelists had founded and he was not slow to acknowledge their ministry. This was not a competition but a partnership because the kingdom they represented was not theirs but God’s and their mandate was not to build the church — Jesus said He would do that — but to make disciples, and that’s what they were bent on doing.

There is a feeling of camaraderie and oneness among these people as we read the account of Paul’s reunion with the church in Jerusalem. They were all in it together and Paul’s success was their success.

What went wrong that the church is so fragmented and that there are so many different streams of thought and practice in the church today? Jesus made it very simple:

  1. He said, ‘Follow me; learn of me; obey me.’ His intention was that we be bound to Him as our model and our mentor, not any human being who thinks he can be a substitute for the Master. We are heading off in the wrong direction if we let go of Jesus.
  1. He gave us His written word as our source book. We have access to everything about Him in His Word. When we choose to ignore His Word and substitute human words for His Word, we are on the wrong track.
  1. He gave us His Spirit as His indwelling representative — another just like Himself — whose role is to teach us about Him and make Him real to us so that we can follow Him.

When we ignore the Holy Spirit or try to squeeze Him into who we think He is or what we think He ought to do, we lose the one person who can make unity possible.

Jesus’ impassioned plea to the Father was “That they may be one, Father, just as we are one.” That can never happen until we return to the simple basics of following Jesus, listening to the Holy Spirit and sticking to His Word.

THE BOOK OF ACTS – A MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART

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A MAN AFTER GOD’S HEART

“After several days of visiting, a prophet from Judea by the name of Agabus came down to us. He went right up to Paul, took Paul’s belt and, in a dramatic gesture, tied himself up, hands and feet. He said, ‘This is what the Holy Spirit says. The Jews in Jerusalem are going to tie up the man who owns this belt just like this, and hand him over to godless unbelievers.’

“When we heard that, we and everyone there that day begged Paul not to be stubborn and persist in going to Jerusalem. But Paul wouldn’t budge. ‘Why all this hysteria? Why do you insist on making a scene and making it even harder for me? You’re looking at this backwards. The issue in Jerusalem is not what they do to me, whether arrest or murder, but what the Master Jesus does through my obedience. Can’t you see that?'” Acts 21:10-13 (The Message).

What a man! What a perspective!

Every time Paul was warned not to go to Jerusalem by well-meaning but misguided people, his resolve to face whatever was coming as long as it was in his Master’s will grew stronger. Paul was more concerned about missing God’s plan for him than he was about any kind of abuse or suffering from fellow-Jews or Romans. Whatever his friends thought or wanted for him was inconsequential. He had a single-minded determination to see his obedience through to the end, no matter what.

Paul’s life-lessons had brought him to the point where he drew his joy and his strength from the wellspring of obedience to Jesus, not circumstances, success or fruitfulness. The union between him and Jesus, established decades ago on the road to Damascus, when his response to Him was a simple, ‘Lord, what do you want me to do?’ had become stronger and less complicated the longer he walked the road with Him.

From Paul’s story in the New Testament and from David’s in the Old, we can draw this conclusion: which of His children bring God the most pleasure? Those who win the most souls for Jesus? Those who suffer the most for Him? Those who go to the remotest parts of the earth and give up the most for Him? None of these things count for anything. What pleases God the most is doing what He tells us to do!

It may be as simple as caring for an abused or retarded child. It may be as undramatic as giving a cup of water to a thirsty beggar. It may be as routine as staying at home and raising a family. It is not what we do that gains us Brownie points. God looks at our hearts. Obedience is the hallmark of the one who truly loves Jesus. “‘If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you.'” John 14:15 (The Message).

This was God’s affirmation of David at the end of his life: “After removing Saul, He made David their king. He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.'” Acts 13:22 (NIV). That puts every single believer within reach of the same verdict, “A man/woman after my own heart!” Who would not want that written by the finger of God on his/her CV?

How is this achieved? By the lessons of confidence and trust we learn through the trials of life. God told Moses, ‘You can’t see my face, but I will show you my back.’ We cannot see where God is taking us but where can see where He has been and that will surely give us confidence to trust him for the future.

Jesus gave His disciples one simple instruction: ‘Follow me.’ From that flows every step of our journey with Him. We must beware of every person and every teaching that complicates that simple instruction. God’s verdict on us hangs on our obedience to that simple command!

THE BOOK OF ACTS – INFECTIOUS FAITH

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INFECTIOUS FAITH

“When our time was up, they escorted us out of the city to the docks. Everyone came along — men, women, children. They made a farewell party of the occasion! We all kneeled down together on the beach and prayed. Then, after another round of saying goodbye, we climbed aboard the ship while they drifted back to their homes.

“A short run from Tyre to Ptolemais completed the voyage. We greeted our Christian friends there and stayed with them a day. In the morning, we went on to Caesarea and stayed with Philip the Evangelist, one of the “Seven”. Philip had four virgin daughters who prophesied.” Acts 21:5-9 (The Message).

It amazes me that there were Christian communities in every city and town along Paul’s route to Jerusalem. In the space of some thirty years, the message of Jesus had seeped into every nook and cranny of the Roman Empire, so it seems, and that in the face of serious opposition from both Jews and Romans. What was it in the message and in the circumstances that caused the gospel to take root so firmly in the hostile soil of pagan Rome and Jewish fanaticism?

Because of the Pax Romana, the relative peace that prevailed in the empire, there was freedom of movement between countries and provinces all around the Mediterranean Sea. There was no such thing as passports and visas to hinder free travel between countries. The Roman government kept a tight rein on the people through its army, quelling any signs of rebellion before it spread.

There was one common language spoken throughout the empire. Thanks to the conquest of Alexander the Great and the spread of Greek culture and language, Greek was the lingua franca of the empire, making verbal communication easy wherever the believers went.

Roman roads on the main routes were paved, enabling Paul and his associates to journey in relative ease and safety along the main highways, avoiding danger from gangs of robbers on the way.

Wherever Rome ruled, it created colonies which were microcosms of Rome itself. Through its governors and their subordinates, who were Rome’s ambassadors, everything that Rome stood for was represented in the farthest corners of the empire. This model was the basis for understanding how the church was to function in the world.

Just as Caesar ruled the empire through his ekklesia, a group of chosen men he gathered around him, who had an intimate relationship with him and who carried out his instructions through his representatives, so the church (Jesus’ ekklesia) was a group of people who had an intimate relationship with Him and through whom He implemented His will on earth.

Although these factors made the spread of the gospel easy, they do not give us the reason for the rapid spread of Christianity in a hostile environment. The real power lay in the effect Jesus had on the people who believed in Him. Paganism and idolatry were common everywhere, but false religions did not have the power to transform lives.

Jesus had promised His disciples that He would build His church in a place like Caesarea Philippi, where people engaged in sexual orgies with goats in public as part of the worship of the goat-god, Pan. In that kind of environment, the worst that pagan beliefs could produce, it happened and it was happening everywhere.

Take Ephesus, for example. The power of Jesus had broken and nullified the hold of the goddess, Artemis, over the city. Witchcraft was exposed, occult books burned and a whole industry based on idolatry ruined. The power of the Holy Spirit, working in the lives of those who believed the message of Jesus, so changed lives, transforming selfish and greedy people into loving, caring and generous followers of Jesus that whole communities were changed and the message was carried everywhere wherever the believers went.

THE BOOK OF ACTS – IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

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CHAPTER 21

IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

“And so, with the tearful goodbyes behind us, we were on our way. We made a straight run to Cos, the next day reached Rhodes and then Patara. There we found a ship going direct to Phoenicia, got on board, and set sail. Cyprus came into view on our left, but was soon out of sight as we kept on course for Syria, and eventually docked in the port of Tyre. While the cargo was being unloaded, we looked up local disciples and stayed with them seven days. Their message to Paul, from insight given them by the Spirit, was “Don’t go to Jerusalem.'” Acts 21:1-4 (The Message).

Was the Holy Spirit a bit mixed up? It looks like it at first reading. Did He give Paul one message and the believers in Tyre another? Since we know that the Holy Spirit would not do that, it is more likely that He was alerting Paul’s friends to pray for him, rather than stop him from going to Jerusalem.

As well-meaning as they were, they could not deter Paul from the course he had chosen, regardless of the cost. He knew that God wanted him to go to Jerusalem. He obeyed, not knowing then that it was the way to Rome, and Rome was his goal. It might seem a devious route but God knew the reasons and implications of that way. There was no other way for Paul to gain entrance to the household of Caesar but through imprisonment and, through it, to influence the entire palace guard for Jesus.

“Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Because of my chains, most of my brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the Word of the Lord more courageously and fearlessly.” Philippians 1:12-14 (NIV).

Paul did have to suffer hardship, danger and imprisonment but God was always with him, protecting him from the hatred of fanatical Jews and ensuring that he followed the right course for Rome. Plots to kill him were thwarted more than once and, strangely enough, it was the Roman government that protected him and gave him safe passage out of Jerusalem, offering him the benefits of a justice system that put the lid on the intentions of Jewish radicals.

Sometimes he was only a hairsbreadth from death, but he knew that, as long as he was in the hands of God, he was indestructible until he had fulfilled God’s purpose for him. A long life of living on a knife edge but secure in the hands of a loving Father, had taught him to rest in Him in spite of his circumstances.

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39 (NIV).

For Paul this was not theory, and there is no way he could have written these words had he not experienced the hard reality of the difficulties, suffering and trials that gave birth to such security in God. It is only a person, like Paul, who refuses to give credit to the devil for his circumstances and lives in the awareness of God’s love, that can emerge from the worst that life can produce and still declare: “I am convinced that nothing can separate me from the love of God.’

There is a place of calm in the eye of the storm. We can only find that place if we choose to rest in the perfect love of God regardless of the whispered lies of the devil to discredit the intentions of our Father God.

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18 (NIV).