Acts

A month or so ago Huldah Buntaine was at our church, sharing what God was doing in Calcutta. She knew Mother Theresa, which was pretty cool. About three weeks ago we had our debit card compromised and someone stole $760.00 from our bank account. Then, the following week Dr. David Wang was at church (from Asian Outreach) sharing what God was doing in the Chinese church. That day I felt that if the 760.00 got reimbursed by our bank (they have insurance and all) that I should give it to missions. After it was stolen, I worked it out so I could manage without it, so I really didn't need it. I don't know if it was a God-thing or just me, but nonetheless, I figured it wasn't a bad thing.

Before church this morning I read Acts. Tomorrow, Karen (my wife) is going with nine other women to Ukraine for a short-term (10 days) missions trip. I don't know if any of this has bearing on anything, except that now I see that Acts is all about missions. Jesus left his disciples, gave them the Holy Spirit, and the rest is Christian History.

There are some really neat stories about people: Peter, Stephen, Philip, Saul (Paul), Barnabas, Timothy and Silas. The thing that struck me as I read was that the main characters took every opportunity to talk about Jesus. Everything, they used it to draw attention to Jesus. Missions.

Paul travelled all over the place, freely. Then, he managed to make his way to Rome, as a prisoner. He used the fact that he used to be a Pharisee to win credibility to share Jesus to the Jewish officials. He used his Roman citizenship to get an audience with Roman officials so he could tell him about Jesus. His trip to Rome was to see the Emporer, as a prisoner, which was I'm sure, to tell him about Jesus.

As each of them travelled and taught, they performed miracles, all for the purpose of gettign peoples attention and gettign an audience so they could tell them about Jesus. Then, they prayed for them that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit.

There are lots of specific lessons that can be learned here for me, and I'll be back for a deeper read in the future. For example, in the story of Cornelius, and angel appears to him, a non-Jew, and says "God has heard your prayers and knows about your gifts to the poor" (10:4). God sent Peter to him, and Peter was able to use this experience later to show that god wanted to draw all people to him, not just Jews.

So, I was not necessarily excited about Karen's trip before. I was happy for the experience for her, and support her in prayer, morale and finance. The disciples did two things immediately after Jesus left: they waited, then they went. We've already received the Holy Spirit, now she's going, so she's walking in the steps of the early church.

I work in Developmental Services. The majority of my peers in other agencies are socially and politically active, very well educated, and not many are followers of Christ. As a matter of fact, many likely do not have any examples of Christ in their lives - I'm probably it. I like the fact that God gave wisdom to Peter and Paul and the others as they preached and taught. I like that they were able to have the respect of many audiences even though they were not well educated. That gives me hope. Somehow, I might be able to be an example to people who far exceed my knowledge, education and experience. I like that God uses people that are not at the top of the ladder.