SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/3/2017
8:53 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Spiritual
Participation
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 4:32a
Message of the
verse: And the congregation of those
who believed were of one heart and soul.”
We wrote at the end of our SD yesterday that the verses
in this section, Acts 4:32-5:11 can be broken up into two sections, “the
sharing of the saints and the sins of the saints. Today we look at the first sub-section under
that first main section “The Sharing of the Saints.” John MacArthur writes the following about
this first main section: “This concise
passage forms the positive backdrop against which the negative portrait of sin
in the church is portrayed. From it four
features emerge that illustrate the richness of the fellowship and sharing
experienced in the early church.” Today’s
SD will be about this first feature.
Numbering those who have become believers is not seen
because the number of believes has grown so much and we can see the reason as
to why this happened as we once again look back at verse 31 “And when they had
prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with
the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.” Being filled with the Holy Spirit caused them
to speak the word of God with boldness which in turn caused many people to
become born-again. This church at
Jerusalem, the very first church became a remarkable church indeed and because
of this Satan was not happy with it and as we will learn he begins to attack
the church from the inside, but in the verses we will study at the end of Acts
chapter four we will see that the people who were believers did some remarkable
things, things that truly show that they had been born from above. We see that first of all they “were of one
heart and soul,” telling us that there were not any doctrinal differences with
them, for after all they had the apostles of our Lord to teach them the things
that the Lord had taught them.
Let’s look more about this statement they “were of one
heart and soul.” We begin by looking at
John 13:35 where we read that Jesus said “"By this all men will know that
you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."” Love for another, and that is exactly what
these believers had. John 17:21, which
is our Lord’s High Priestly prayer we see He states “that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me
and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” This first fellowship was truly and answer to
this part of our Lord’s High Priestly prayer.
John MacArthur concludes this section with the following
paragraph:
“The basis of their shared
life was twofold. First, they were
preoccupied with ministering to each other.
So intent were they on meeting each other’s needs that they had no
concern for gratifying their own desires.
Theirs was a humility stemming from seeing themselves in relation to
Jesus Christ, and others as more important than themselves (Phil. 2:3). Second, they were focused beyond themselves
to reaching the lost world with the truth of the gospel. That left them little time to bother with
trivial personal matters. Their unity stemmed
from focusing on those priorities Jesus had left them; selflessly loving each
other, and reaching the lost world.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I have mentioned
in earlier SD’s that back in the 1980’s Billy Graham was preaching in a large
city in western Canada and he told the people that he was talking to that it is
difficult to serve the Lord in places like this great western city of
Canada. The reason was that they had
many things that were satisfying them and therefore did not desire to serve the
Lord because in their eyes had all that they needed. The same is true today, but it was not true
in this Jerusalem church we read about in the book of Acts.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Not to get caught up in the things of the
world, but trust the Lord to allow me to tell others about the truth of the
gospel.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “In the church in the air” (1
Thessalonians 4:17).
Today’s Bible
question: “Complete the beatitude ‘"Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs.”
Answer in our next SD.
10/3/2017 9:23 AM
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