The results of true awe

 

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, Acts 2:46 ESV

            Give your attention to the phrase, “day by day.” This indicates each and every day. The community of the earliest church gathered not just consistently, but constantly. Why? Hadn’t these people other places to go, and other people to see? Didn’t they need to work? It seems to us they hadn’t, that they lived in some fairytale time without jobs and outside obligations. But the text of scripture suggests no such thing. The text of scripture suggests something else entirely.

            The truth appears that these saints of yore did indeed have something we now lack, but it wasn’t more time, or easier lives, or any such thing as we like to think. What they had was an appreciation of God and a hunger for the things of God we lack. Go back to verse 43 and you will see these saints were in awe for they had seen something awesome. This compelling vision shifted their priorities and reordered their lives. They gathered daily because they could not stay away from each other or from God.

            This has been the case elsewhere and at other times when God has revealed Himself in the demonstration of power through the Holy Spirit. In revivals believers have demanded preaching each day, raising early or staying late. They have rearranged their days, and gone well out of their ways to get more of God. An honest assessment is wanted here. God has not changed; He is no less awesome now than He has been before. Perhaps it is not our schedules that are problematic but the eyes of hearts. Perhaps it is not that we can’t, but that we find no reason to. Perhaps, perhaps we have not seen God so clearly as we think...

Prayer

            Father have mercy on us, and grant us to know You and to see Your glory. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Up and ahead

              Sometimes we are blindsided by a sudden shift in life. We thought we were on stable ground, and then someone starts shouting at us in a routine meeting, or tells us we don’t have a job anymore on a Monday morning, or a loved one leaves on Friday evening with no plans to return. We are left with broken piece of something that once made a kind of sense to us. We knew, and now we do not know.             Where is God? We can’t see Him anymore. We cannot understand where He went to, or what he was thinking. We trusted Him, didn’t we? Now look where we are… It is the better part of wisdom to be quiet when these calamities come to visit and to wait. It is the one wise thing Job’s friend did, when first they saw the plight of the miserable man, they only wept with him.             When later they decided to try and explain things, it did not help Job at all. What could they tell him? They didn’t have answers. And a lot of times we do not have answers either. We are too sca
Read more

Against work addiction

  It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. Psalm 127:2 ESV             When work becomes anxious toil, something has gone wrong. Something has gone wrong in our society when it comes to work. Several decades ago, Wayne Oats coined a new word, “Workaholic” to describe addiction to work.   The description Oats came up resonates with the psalmist describes. Anxious toiling, long hours, and little if any enjoyment of the work itself or the fruits of the toil. Addiction is another word for slavery, and it is easy to be enslaved by the anxiety over our work for it drives to work more, and that increases our anxiety while also burning through psychological energies.             Not only is workaholism addiction/slavery, it is idolatry for if we stop to think about it the workaholic has placed his hope in his own work. Beloved what is truly tragic is that we live in society that admires the workaholi
Read more

Let me tell you something you already know

  Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have.   I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things. 2 Peter 1:12-15 ESV             Peter greets the saints who obtained from Christ a faith of equal in standing, Peter is no more saved than they are, and they have no more salvation than Peter has. Nevertheless, Peter begins his letter by urging these saints, and by extension all of us, to increase in the faith and add to it such qualities as are consistent with the character of Christ. This is right, it is part of the promise, and it leads to an effective and fruitful faith. Failure to grow thus shows one has not understood the knowledge of Christ.            
Read more