"Now, Lord, consider the threats and enable your servants to speak the word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus." (Acts 4:29-30)
Faced with an option to follow their religious leaders or to do what they felt God was leading them to do, the early believers once again prayed as one. Let's face it, this option is played out over and over again. The church is still told what to do and what it can not do. Groups still seek to be lead to new ministry and other groups within the church desire, instead, to maintain their grip on the leadership and do all they can to keep new movements from happening. Do they people of Christ get together? Do we lift our voices to God together? Do we pray for miracles and wonders and healing? Do we pray for boldness in proclaiming the word to all people? because there is a pattern emerging here folks: the church gets together and prays together and receive a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit together! That is a pattern I want in on!
I think we are challenged by this account to stop ourselves every time we want to dismiss something so easily, and really decide to hear what is being said. I think we should really seek to discern what is happening in these days! I think we should be open to the Holy Spirit at work in our churches. And I think we should be together, praying just the way those early Christians did; for boldness and a very real movement of God in our communities.
I'm sure that when the Holy Spirit moves, someone will be there to tell us to knock it off. But I also believe that if we can focus on Christ and be together in ministry and prayer, that same Holy Spirit will fill us freah and we will be a part of something amazing God will do.
I want to be part of the church that relies on prayer and the Holy Spirit to take us far beyond what where we currently are and start doing things we've thought were impossible. While reading Acts, I've also been reading Jim Cymbala's book "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire". If you get a chance to read it, especially in tangent with the book of Acts, jump at the chance. It may change the way you think about the status quo. This is a book that asks, "What happens when God's Sprit invades the hearts of his people?" From the book of Acts and this book, it obvious the answer is miracles. I want to be part of a church operates the way the newborn church worked then, with prayers to, love for, praise of, and faith in God.
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