The greatest is love. Not our mushy conditional as long as “you do for me what I want love”. Not erotic love. Not imperfect family love. Not “materialistic love”. God’s love. The supernatural love that only God who is love gives to His children through His Spirit. That’s agape love, sacrificial, enduring, other-focused. The love that our Lord Jesus personified. That’s the only love that will endure and be part of God’s kingdom. That’s the love that will abide forever. That’s the love we need to have.
If the Christian life can be summarized it is with these words that Jesus said. He is using figurative language to teach spiritual truth. The vine in the Old Testament was Israel. Jesus is saying that he is the vine now. He is the source of all spiritual life. The disciples are the branches nourished by the vine. The Father is the one that cares for the vine and consequently the branches. Jesus told his disciples to abide in him in order to bear fruit. It follows that the fruit is a result of being in Jesus, therefore it is related to Jesus’s character. The fruit they will bear is to be like Jesus.
Abide isn’t a once and for all, it’s a daily thing. Abiding not in any person (wife, husband, children), thing (material), plan (present or future), purpose (life goal), church (service) but in Jesus. Only in Him we can bear fruitful character that redlects Him. Living in our own human efforts (apart from Him) we can’t bear fruit, do anything long lasting or reflect His character. We can live life in our efforts but we will never experience the fullness of what it means to abide in Him. Our life will be spiritually shallow and will need pruning by God the caretaker.
Jesus told them, and us of course, that we abide in Him when we keep or do what He says (vv. 7, 10). This takes intentionality and spending time (being rooted in Him) with Jesus every day. There is just no other way.
In today’s passage we look at how God uses Peter and John on one (of many) impossible missions. And although we see that it has a physical miraculous element, the most miraculous element is the spiritual transformation that it brings to the people involved.
We are to be on mission with God every day. That’s where it all begins. Moreover, if we are available, He will give us His mission each day. Only when each of us live as agents or ambassadors of Christ we will we achieve this goal.
In this passage we find the birth of God’s new community, the church. God’s community is distinctive and unique. It has distinctive God-given characteristics that are evident. Identifying and understanding them will help us be the community of God we are intended to be.
Peter through this sermon or preaching, will explain to the audience (many Diaspora Jews who had come for the special celebration, some to stay permanently in Jerusalem, some temporary) what is happening. God is doing this for a purpose. He will explain that this is a new beginning for Israel. From now on, the Holy Spirit will permanently reside within God’s people. This is possible because the Lord Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead, and this is why “God has made him Lord and Christ.” They must believe in Him as the Messiah and repent of their sins. In this way they will be part of this prophecy and be part of the assembly or Church that begins here and will bear witness to the world.
In this passage we learn about the fulfilled promise that the Father promised to send, the coming of the Holy Spirit. We have the same Spirit of God in us. Often, we quench the Spirit, dulling it with our disobedient lives. We need to let Him fill us up so He can use us. It is my prayer that we will be part of and continue what the Holy Spirit began to do here. We are His church.Promised Fulfilled – Acts 2:1-11
God’s promises are reliable. There are approximately 5,467 promises in the Bible. God’s promises are irrevocable because he is a God who does not lie (Numbers 23:11) that does not change, (Ps. 110: 4) and that has all the power to fulfill them (Isaiah 55:11). He is worthy of all our trust. We see it in this passage where Jesus’ followers wait for the promise of the Spirit who would come to live in them.
This passage teaches us how God’s people trusted with anticipation for the Lord’s promise, their dedication to prayer, and their pursuit of God’s will as they waited as they waited for the fulfillment. We should also be in anticipation of God’s promises and do so in constant prayer and be committed to pursuing his will.
A group of 120 people, most of them without much education or social status. Followers of Christ, many of them saw and heard the Lord Jesus Christ. This group of people formed the first “assembly” or church of Christ. These were called to carry the message of the Good News to the whole world. And they did. At least we know that the twelve apostles all carried Christ’s message to the whole world. The last of them to go was one named St. Paul. He planted at least 14 new churches over a 10-year period, traveling more than 3,000 miles (a lot on foot). But this Church has not disappeared. That Church is us. The message they preached came to us. Now we are in charge of taking this message to the whole world. Of the 7.2 billion people in the world, there are 3.0 billion who have not heard the message of salvation in Christ. This is our challenge.
Many people have resolutions. Maybe you do. Many years ago, I started teaching about spiritual goals based on a well-known passage in Scripture. These are worth our time and effort the whole year. St. Paul in Philippians gives us five of them. These goals are not temporary, they are goals for the entire duration of our lives.
I am enjoying this book and agreeing with it (like "yes!", "write on"...laughing that Jesus wouldn't get hired because he was single...silly but prob would be true). There are some parts that uses particular language to describe leadersh...
Material is copyright by eigaldamez. Permission is given to re-post or reproduce without editing the content.
Disclaimer:
The contents of all personal web pages and blogs published are solely my responsibility.
Statements made and opinions expressed on personal pages are strictly those of the author and not of any organization, church, or school.
