Thank you for this new day full of possibilities. Thank you for this time with you. Calm my mind to receive what you have to say to me today.
Boldness. Compulsion of love, not duty. Strangely weird and weirdly strange goings on at the end of the world. But that dragon is going to come to a sad, sorry end. But he's going to try to take as many of us with him as he can. Help, Lord! Wisdom is always a good thing. And last but not least, Faith. Faith in all things. With God, with his power and wisdom and strength and involvement in our lives. In some ways, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium movie is right: believing is seeing.
Thanks again for this time together.
Love,
Acts 4-5
Peter and John go before the Sanhedrin for healing the crippled man. Peter rocks it out and tells them all about you, and the people are amazed because you worked through unschooled ordinary men. Not rabbis or priests or rich people. I'm schooled. But I'm ordinary. I don't feel like I'll ever be anything "super spiritual" but you can definitely work through that.
So Peter and John get off with a warning, but Peter said there wasn't anyway they could ever stop talking about you and praising you and telling others about the tremendous love of you. I wonder how many Christians here in America would be all too happy to keep quiet. I know many do. But it's sad! Lord, help me feel that compulsion to talk about you, not because you want us to, but because there's no way we would be quiet about you. Help it be something I can't help! Help me speak with boldness like Peter and John prayed afterwords. You answered their prayer. I pray you would answer mine.
So all the believers are sharing generously. Sometimes they sell properties/things solely to give it to the church. Not just one tenth, the whole thing. Barnabas did that. What a name! (Son of Encouragement).
Ananias and Saphira do the same thing as Barnabas, but they keep back some of the money. That wasn't why they sinned. They made it out that they were giving the full amount to God. That is why they died. It seems so harsh, but they thought they could keep secrets from God.
Solomon's colonnade--look it up. Pretty interesting.
What would it be like to be so drenched with God that your shadow has Jesus' power?
So they get arrested for preaching about Jesus. They escape, thanks to an angel, and continue preaching in the temple. The Sanhedrin is gathered and they send for the disciples in jail, but they're not there. They're in the temple. So they go and bring the disciples back (without using force, meaning the disciples went with them, without standing there saying, "Make me!"), and question them and all. The disciples won't back down and make them angry enough that they want to kill them. But one of the guys, Gamaliel (which I think was Paul's teacher?) said that they shouldn't because they're not scattering like other movements when their leader was killed. If it's from men, it will fail. If not, we'd be fighting against God.
So yeah. I don't know why I felt the need to recount that all when it's in the Bible, but...
Awesome verse: Acts 5:29 We must obey God rather than men!
Revelation 11-12
Great, God. Fire-breathing prophets. These are weird times, I'm telling you! Oh, and then they die, lay there in the street for three and a half days, then stand back up again, alive and well. Then they float into heaven after a voice from heaven tells them to. Strangely weird, and weirdly strange!
Then the people in heaven praise you, probably the fire-breathing prophets with them. That will be completely awesome to hear! Better than the Messiah or anything like that.
So then there's this whole thing about the woman and the dragon. First the dragon tries to take the woman's baby, but that didn't happen. Then he fights against Michael and his angels, but he lost that and was thrown down to earth. And now his time is short. We need to watch out! yeesh.
Proverbs 7
Soo this adulterous woman. I thought of her this morning as I was reading about Patsy in Living on the Devil's Doorstep.
I need your wisdom, Lord. I know I can be naive. Help me become wise enough to know what needs to be done in every situation.
Hebrews 11
v 3 we don't need proof to know that God made the world. If he said he did, he did!
v 5 Enoch is one of my favorite very obscure Bible people. He walked with God. So close that he just went with God instead of dying. How completely awesome is that?
v 6 Guess what? I have faith! I know God exists, he's active in my life, and he blesses those who seek him. Not always in material wealth (most times that more of a curse than a blessing), but in God stuff. Wisdom. Patience, whatever. If nothing in this life, most definitely somethings in the next one!
v 7 Noah had faith and did what God told him to do. I don't remember anything about Noah giving tons of excuses and wondering how God was going to get all the animals to come and co exist in a boat for that long, and what to do when people laughed at him, and all that stuff. He just did it. And saved mankind. Well, his family. That was enough :-) Sooo... we're all descended from Adam and Moses and figuratively speaking Abraham. :-) Oh, don't get the Hebrews writer started on Abraham! He's his mostest favoritest person! With good reason...
We'll read more about Abraham tomorrow.