Author: David Short

Acts 20:29

For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

Personal Challenge

From the very beginning of the church, we have been warned of those who will try to turn the people to their way of thinking. In the first 700-800 years of the church we had many battles with heretical teachings that attempted to turn the people away from the truth. It was met head on by the early church fathers and councils to fight the onslaught. It is no different today. We are still fighting those heresies of the early days as well as new permutations. The difficulty that we face today is that there are so many groups, or faith practices, that proclaim Jesus as their Lord and yet also hold on to and teach heresies. We have become so divided and so independent that is hard to have a unified confrontation with these lies This is why we must be diligent to watch for the savage wolves amongst us and be willing to stand up to them. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

Acts 17:28

for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’

Encouraging Words

Throughout the scriptures, both the Old Testament and the New, the followers of God are labelled, “His children.” In this passage, Paul is debating with the Athenians about their idol to the unknown God. They had a god for everything. Paul presents to them that there is only one God and that it is because of Him that we live and move and have our being. He also proclaims that because of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we are now adopted into the family of God and are His offspring. We are indeed, His children. Glory be to God!

Acts 17:6

But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.”

Personal Challenge

So, why were Jason and other brethren dragged before the rulers of the city? This happened in the city of Thessalonica. Paul and Silas had come here to stay with Jason and these other brethren in order to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to this part of the world. The gospel was changing lives. The gospel was changing the world. Is that gospel any different than the gospel that we have to share today? No! We have the same gospel to share that Paul, Silas, and Jason had to share. So, what has changed? The messengers. If we desire to see our world turned upside down for Jesus then we need to embrace it and share it as the early church fathers did. We need to throw off the garments of this temporal world and put on the garments of Christ in order to be on fire for Him and change our world. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Acts 16:25

But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

Personal Challenge

What do we typically do when life presses in on us and things are not going well? Do we get angry and push back? Do we get rude and obstinate and start attacking those around os? Do we get depressed and crawl into a dark place to hide from the world? Paul and Silas were having a pretty bad day. They had been thrown into jail for preaching the gospel of Jesus and bound in chains. The prospects did not look good. What did they do? They started praying and singing hymns. They were joyful for they were serving the risen Lord. What a vivid lesson for us to follow. Glory be to God!

Acts 8:30-31

So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.

Personal Challenge

In this passage of Acts, we are told that Philip was approached by an angel and told to go to a certain place along the road out of Jerusalem. Philip immediately did what he was told without questioning it. He didn’t even question the fact that it was an angel the told him to do this. When he got there, the spirit within Philip spoke to him and told him to go up to a chariot that had a eunuch from Ethiopia in it. This man was a powerful man in the courts of the Ethiopian queen and a devout Jew who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the passover. This is where these two verses pick up the story. What we see here is that Philip was willing to listen to an angel of the Lord and do what he was told, He was in such a close relationship with his resurrected Lord that he could hear the Spirit speaking to him. And, he was willing and available to do what he was told to do. In the rest of the passage, Philip leads the eunuch to Jesus and baptizes him on the spot. Both Philip and the eunuch were available to be used by God. This very well could have been the man that took the Christian faith back to Ethiopia, which still has a strong Orthodox presence. Glory be to God. May we all learn to be available as Philip was. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

Acts 6:8

And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.

Personal Challenge

What sets the apostles and deacons of the early church apart from us? We read about the accounts of their great wonders and signs. Were they created different than us or given greater powers than us? No. They were full of faith in Christ, the resurrected Son of God. We too can have this level of faith in our lives if we choose to off load the distractions of this world and set our hearts and minds on Jesus. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Acts 5:40-42

And they agreed with him, and when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.

Personal Challenge

This passage is a great example of the apostles defying the order that was given to them by the religious leaders of the day. They had been brought before the Sadducees for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. After telling the Sadducees that they would continue to obey God rather than them, the Sadducees were furious and ready to kill the apostles. However, Gamaliel, one of the Sadducees, convinced the others to let them live proclaiming that if these uneducated apostles were actually doing Gods’ work, then killing them would not stop God from spreading His message. Even after being beaten and commanded to not preach any more, the apostles left rejoicing and continued to do God’s work. Their defiance of the order of the Sadducees was not to exercise their personal rights and freedoms. It was not because they personally disagreed with the mandates of the land. They were not defying the order to pay taxes or anything else like that. When the order was to stop doing what God had called them to do, then they defied that order. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

Acts 5:29

But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men.

Personal Challenge

If we are followers of Christ then our hierarchy of obedience is different than that of the world. As we grow in our image of Christ we begin to understand that God’s authority far exceeds that of the world and choose to submit to His authority, especially if it conflicts with the expectations that the world puts on us. We still abide by the laws of the land where God has put us because that glorifies our God. But when the laws and expectations of the world begin to contradict the laws and expectations of God, then we choose God’s ways and accept the consequences. We also need to understand that God will often use the laws and governance of this world to accomplish His objectives. We must always align our preferences with His expectations. God’s ways always transcend above the ways of the world. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Acts 4:19-20

But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.”

Personal Challenge

It is important that we believe in the truth of our God so much that we cannot do anything else but speak of Him and His truths. The lives of the martyrs have shown us that the truth of God was so important in their lives that they were willing to die, often very painful deaths, in order to never give up or taint that truth. God’s truth is life. God’s truth is eternal. God’s truth is Jesus Christ. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!