Blessed To Be A Blessing (Part 2)

Acts 2:42-47 "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved."

This great church that we love has been given what I believe is one more chance, one more window of opportunity, to return to our spiritual heritage, reclaim this nation for the glory of God, and again realize we are blessed to be a blessing. However, that window of opportunity is closing quickly and if there is to be a change it must come from those that are in the church today. Therein lays our problem. We have created a culture of Christians who are program driven but not driven by spiritual passion. God has set the stage for change for the better, yet the church remains status quo, business as usual.


-We rejoice that our church goes forward in faith, but we live with a foundation of un-faithfulness within our fellowship.


-We take pride in the practice of our doctrine, but there is no evidence of passion or maturity in our relationship with Christ.


-We are apathetic to the fact that there is often no distinguishable difference between the believers and the non-believers in the church today


-We seek to enlarge our boundaries worldwide, but we can't find a place in our schedule to ask the people in our neighborhoods to join us for worship.

-We talk about beautiful buildings, but we lack the consistently to build and mature Christians to grow into biblical believers that impact this culture.


-We spend years and millions of dollars to design programs that will stimulate the growth of the church instead of developing and equipping disciples with a spiritual passion to use their gifts and talents locally for God.

-We desire that the world respect us as a church  instead of seeking the respect of Christ by building radical relationships with Him and with one another.



Yes, we have a window of opportunity to be a blessing but we must act now. Only through spiritual growth in maturing the disciple will this spiritual passion be evident and measurable. Only when the passion is evident will the church, which made a commitment to the spiritual development of the believer, begin to see that spiritual passion touch every aspect of our society. 

When the believers in the Body are convicted that we must participate in a biblical process that will result in spiritual maturity will the church be the church that we have read about in Acts 2:42-47.

Can we once once again impact and influence our community?  The answer is yes, but the window of opportunity is closing quickly.  The work ahead will take nothing short of radical commitment to change our direction and fulfill the Godly expectations that we read from His Word.

-Acts 2:42 "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."


The word "devoted" originates from two Greek words (pros) and (kartereo) which means to be earnest towards, to persevere, be constantly diligent, to attend assiduously all the exercises, to adhere closely to, to attend continually, to wait on.


The early church, did not meet and vote to get a consensus that this was the direction they were going to take in the building of God's church on this earth. They simply acted out of spiritual conviction that this is what God was directing in their lives. They had the example of their spiritual leaders such as Peter on the day of Pentecost. 


Think about what Jesus did not do in preparing the 12 disciples to turn this world upside down with the Gospel:


-He didn't have them focus on the politics of the day.


-He didn't have them attempt to compromise with the religious structure of the day.


-He didn't tell them to develop a focus on programs to instruct people.


So what did Christ do to get His followers to this place of maturity that we read about in Acts 2? 


He poured His life into these men and gave them His life and His message so that they could infiltrate their culture with a transformed life and a passionate desire to serve God and to build others to serve God. It was done by conviction and not by majority vote. They were not only willing to give their lives, but to die in the process. It was an improbable strategy, but it worked and we have this historical perspective as an encouragement that if God has done it once through a surrendered life then He can do it again. He can use us to be a blessing once again.