Showing posts with label Acts of the Apostles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Acts of the Apostles. Show all posts

Monday

Who is your Attention on? - 31 Days in Acts



Yesterday we said Thank You to Luke.

If you missed it please take a little time to click over to DAY 1 to see how our introduction to this great book of the Bible led us to be thankful and to consider how we tackle things for God.


Today is Day 2 and you will probably be hoping I get through more than 3 verses this time.  Me too!






I'm focusing in on a message in the next part of Acts chapter 1, the little message that the 2 angels gave to the followers of Jesus who were with Him up to His last moments on earth.

But before I go on to that there are also words of Jesus in this section that are very encouraging and important.

So Let's pick out some verses along the way from Acts ch.1 v.4-11


From verse 7 we know that it is not for any of us to know times that God has decided upon, so I was struck by how important and special it must have been for those with Him to hear Jesus Himself say

 "not so many days from now" in verse 5.

Jesus was saying soon, very soon, something was going to happen.

What was Jesus talking about in verse 5?

The Promise of the Father which is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

How exciting and maybe even a bit terrifying for the believers because they could not imagine what it would entail but if Jesus said it they would trust it because they trusted Him.








Verses 9 & 10  are all about the attention of the followers and what it was centred upon.

Firstly their attention was all on Jesus as He spoke to them so this means they clearly heard Him promise that very soon (a matter of days) they would have the presence of the Third Person of the Trinity with them.

Then their attention was all on Him as He ascended.

In fact all of their attention had been on Jesus during that time. They probably didn't want to give their attention to anything else just after that; who would want to miss out on anything that might happen then?






They may have missed things before during the three years with Jesus because they couldn't keep their attention continually upon Him for all of that time.  But this was now surely a different situation with the resurrected Lord.

The two angels who suddenly appeared in verse 10 reassure them that Jesus will come back again - reiterating what Jesus Himself had already told them but they weren't all like Luke (taking a note of everything Jesus said and did from Day 1) so they could well have forgotten He said it or had not been paying proper attention that day and didn't even hear it.






The Special Little Message these two angels gave them covered 4 things:

  1. Jesus went to Heaven.
  2. Jesus will return from Heaven.
  3. Jesus will come back in the same way as He went.
  4. He will be the same Jesus  -  He will be unmistakable. 

All of this vital information in one verse.

I had to give all of my attention to this special little message because that is what was expected of me as well as the disciples. 


Are you giving your full attention to the Special little message?

It is expected of all of us because we need to know the truth of what God has planned for Christ's return and for the comfort, teaching and miracles of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives until He does return.







You can find the other blog posts in this series at











Sunday

Do you read everything in a Book? - Day 1 in the Book of Acts




Well do you?

Do you read everything in a Book?



I read many books but I have to admit I do not read every single word in each book.

I also do not read every single page in the book.

And I also do not read every single section of the book.






Yes along with many other readers I usually jump right in at the start of the first chapter.
I ignore the acknowledgements, prefaces, table of contents etc. and head in to want I really desire to do which is to read the story.


But do I miss out on something important if I do this?



Well in my son's book (which is just published and sitting on our kitchen table as I write this) I would have missed out on a short, touching message if I had not read the dedication page.
Yes he mentions his mum and dad!!!

Then in a few other books I have had to go back and read the preface because I discovered I needed to have a bit of information from that section to actually know why something was specifically being handled in the books.



"So what about the book of Acts then?"



When I started reading the first chapter today I was tempted to skim over the first few verses - you know that bit where Luke is addressing Theophilus.

I was ready to treat it like it was just a necessary, polite greeting to someone and the important stuff would appear in the next section.

Oh how wrong I was and have been in the past because I have done exactly that before several times.

Today I really didn't get much further than the prologue, preface, greeting or whatever you want to call that first 3 verses because I did read them carefully and I learnt a few things from them.






You see I often plan to take notes and document pictures when I'm on a holiday and I start off well but never have I ever finished the task.

LUKE DID!

The evidence is in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of The Acts of the Apostles

3 years of documenting the ministry of Jesus and then many years of documenting the work of the Apostles and the early church.

We have a lot to learn from Luke.
And we have a lot to be thankful to Luke for.

Luke did not start well and then get bored, tired, lazy and not complete the task but instead he kept on faithfully working on this job God had brought him to.

Oh that we would start well and finish well as Luke did!

Then I have to wonder did he realize how important this recording of events and words and feelings would be down through the centuries for others like us?
He would not live to receive our thanks or acknowledgement of the time, effort and thought he put into this.

Oh that we would be willing to do our tasks without the need of recognition and thanks or any accolade for whatever we do for the Kingdom of God.

So why did I find those 3 verses so interesting?





Luke brings out 2 important points about Jesus in these first 3 verses.

  1. Jesus gave commands before His Ascension.
  2. Jesus revealed Himself after the resurrection to speak of the truths of the Kingdom of God.

Luke is pointing these facts out to his friend at the very start to introduce the importance of them, and of course Luke was there so He knows first-hand how important they were.

"Makes you think even before you start reading the story!"


So whether we call these 3 verses an introduction, a prologue or a preface maybe I / We need to rethink how we approach the things we read if the first 3 verses of Acts 1 is indicative of a good prologue.

Makes you think even before you start reading the story.











You can find the other blog posts in this series at