10 Acts – Through and Through

By Richard

Cornelius, we are told was a, “Thoroughly good man” (Acts 10: 1, the Message). The word thoroughly struck me as I read the chapter this morning. It speaks to me of through and through. His goodness was more than skin deep. His goodness saturated every cell of his body. God wants us to have a goodness that is through and through.

09 Acts – The Power to Change Your Life

By Richard

Saul sets off for Damascus, hell bent on stopping this new faith in Jesus, but on the way he meets Jesus and ends up joining “The Way”. He’s converted, baptised and commissioned to be a messenger for Christ. He starts to preach in Damascus. The believers are suspicious. Is this a trap? He runs foul of the Jews and escapes their plot to kill him. He ends up in Jerusalem, and is again preaching about Jesus. The disciples in Jerusalem are also suspicious. Is this a plot to trap them? Barnabus has courage. He takes Saul is his wing. He brings Saul before the leaders. They get to hear his story. The church is finally convinced. Jesus has the power to change an enemy into a friend. God has the power to stop a persecutor in his tracks and send him to preach all across the land. But more than all of this, God has the power to change our lives. Pray that he meets and changes you today, tomorrow and everyday.

8 Acts – To the Ends of the Earth

By Richard

We read in Acts 8 that persecution breaks out and the church is scattered, “Forced to leave home base, the Christians all became missionaries.” (Acts 8:4, the Message)

The church in Acts was a mission-minded church. Persecution did not silence the believers – it just caused them to preach the Gospel elsewhere. The Gospel is beginning to spread to Judea and Samaria. The Ethiopian Eunuch believes and is baptised and the Gospel message takes off into Africa (Ethiopia). Rather than a hindrance, persecution is a means by which the Gospel is beginning to spread to the ends of the earth.

07 Acts – Eyes for God

By Richard

In Acts 7, Stephen preaches to the Jewish leaders. He reminds them of the biblical story, but ends up declaring that they (the Jewish leaders) deliberately ignore the Holy Spirit and silence anyone who dares to talk about the Just One. This doesn’t make the Jewish leaders very happy, so they stone Stephen to death. We read these amazing words.

“Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, hardly noticed – he only had eyes for God, whom he saw in his Glory with Jesus standing by his side.” (Acts 7: 55-56, the Message)

We have been speaking at Mountainview about what it means to follow Jesus. I think that this is a great example. We should have our eyes fixed on Jesus so everything we have to face on earth is pales compared to the greatness of Jesus.

06 Acts – Overflowing with God

by Richard

We read in Acts 6 that, “Steven, brimming with God’s grace and energy, was doing wonderful things among the people, unmistakeable signs that God was among them.” (Acts 6:8, the Message)

I find this a challenging comment about Steven. You kind of get the picture that he was overflowing with God. He was full to the brim with God and God was overflowing out Steven onto others. Perhaps we try too hard to reach out and touch others with God’s love. Perhaps the issue is that we should work on filling up with God so we reach a point where God reaches the brim of our lives and naturally starts flowing out to others.

06 Acts – The Word of God

By Richard

The Apostles remind the church that their call was to continue the central task of, “Preaching and teaching the word of God.” (Acts 6: 3, the Message)

It was good to remind myself, as a pastor at Mountainview that I need to keep this call to preach and teach the word of God as a central task to my ministry. I need to be spending time absorbing the word and praying through the word, long before seeking opportunities to speak, preach and teach about Jesus. This blog is just one such attempt to get the word of God more into my life. I think I have gotten more out of writing these thoughts than perhaps those who read them!

05 Acts – Unstoppable

By Richard

The religious leaders try to stop the Apostles from speaking about Jesus. They would like to have them all killed. Gamaliel, a well respected religious leader reminds them, “If this program or this work is merely human, it will fall apart, but if it’s from God, there is nothing that you can do about it – and you’d better not be found fighting against God!” (Acts 5: 39, the Message)

Human work tends to peter-out, but God’s work is unstoppable. It made me think of our attempts to establish Mountainview Church, and how much that we need to establish the church on Christ and not upon our personal efforts. Our aim must be to establish churches that are making an “unstoppable” contribution to Christ’s work in Spain. We need to do all we can to keep Christ at the centre of Mountainview and discover how and where he is at work in our community…and join him.