After completing my one year Bible reading plan in August (took me over a year and a half, ha!), I asked myself where to go next.
I chose the Book of Acts. The narratives in Acts energize my faith as perhaps no other readings do. They remind me of how the church started, the reality of the Holy Spirit’s work, and the amazing force of a flourishing, spiritually vital church.
As a beloved former pastor repeated weekly while leading us through this book, “Jesus started the church the way he wanted it, and he wants it the way he started it.”
How did it start?
It started with a small group of Jesus-followers commissioned by Jesus to simply bear witness to his resurrection and to tell all they had seen and heard during the three years of his earthly ministry.
It jump-started when these men and women (and maybe some children too) were filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke in unknown tongues, prophesied, and began preaching as the Spirit empowered them.
It grew as the apostles and other disciples grasped that the gospel was intended for Jews and Gentiles alike. They spread the message of salvation far and wide.
It became a thriving, unified community as they mutually provided for the needs of all.
It deepened as they fellowshipped, broke bread, prayed and attended to the apostles’ doctrine together house to house.
It glorified God through the remarkable signs, wonders, healings, and deliverances.
It pulsed with the holy fear of God so that sin, deception, greed, and selfishness could not find a place to root.
It became bold through persecution, suffering, and martyrdom of believers delivered by religious and secular oppressors.
This church Jesus started changed everything. Forever.
As much as I am encouraged by these reminders of those glorious days, I am saddened and concerned for the status of Jesus’s church today.
Where is the spiritual power? Where is the bold, fearless declaration of truth? Where is the uncompromising commitment to holiness?
I contend that the church needs to return to the first principles and practices of these early believers.
The world must hear that Jesus lived, and that he still lives. Believers everywhere must experience the baptism of fire and be filled with the Spirit.
The church must overflow with the Spirit’s fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Individuals and communities will be edified through the sharing of all available gifts and manifestations of spiritual power.
Many will flock to churches where God’s way is demonstrated not only with words, but with power. They will understand that trusting Christ is not just the best way, but the only way to peace, joy, and eternal life.
I’m sure there are small pockets of disciples who are living this way, but this is not generally the case, especially in the Western world.
What will it take for us to get back to where we started?
Please respond with your thoughts!
