Getting out of God's Way
Acts 16:4-5 - Then they went from town to town, explaining the decision regarding the commandments that were to be obeyed, as decided by the apostles and elders in
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The Lord is showing me the opposite side of the coin today, as opposed to what he was showing me yesterday. Yesterday I was feeling the importance of not holding the non believer to the standards we hold believers to. That is very true, but I feel like this verse clearly shows the importance of holding the believers accountable to the lifestyle they are supposed to live.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine and I got into a conversation about sin in the church. Basically the idea we were wrestling with was – Does our sin as a church (I mean the church in general, not a specific church) hold us back from the mighty and amazing things that God wants to do? Does our pride, and gossip, and sexual immorality, and all of our lies cause God to delay whatever he has planned? I thought this to be true and when I look at this verse I am convinced.
If I remember correctly from yesterday the “decision regarding the commandments to be obeyed was that the believers could not eat a few different foods, and couldn’t be sexually immoral. What we see here is that when Paul and Silas present this truth to the church, it is warmly received, and then God started a mini revival. If we look at this we see that the only precursor to a revival is Paul preaching a repentance from sin. The church needs to take this seriously. We need to stop worrying about the sin in our culture, for a little while at least, and focus on the problems in our church. If we can just get those under control, I believe we could expect God to show up and take care of the non believers by the power of his holy spirit, which we no longer quench since our turn from our sins. I’ll be praying about this, but the bottom line is that we can’t tolerate sin from ourselves, and to some extent our Christian family.
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Help me to be full of Love and Grace, but still have a great desire to see you worshiped by people keeping your rules. I don’t want to be part of preventing your revival for my generation. Let me be a promoter not a hindrance. I want it so badly, so consider this a prayer asking you to revive my county also. Help me to be as relevant to my generation as Jesus was to his.
posted by Thomas at 8:49 PM
3 Comments:
I'm not so sure that it was non-believers being talked about in the first place. In Acts 15:19, it says, "Gentiles who turn to God," (new believers). And then in Acts 16:4 they were "explaining the decision regarding the commandments that were to be obeyed." Maybe it has something to do with "baby steps." Sure, not all the laws of Old Testament times were continued, but God calls us to strive towards goodness and purity. It wasn't even the "pagans" that wanted to know the answer in the first place. These were converts-people who had already received the Holy Spirit. It was a type of political unrest within the church (the old farts vs. the young bucks). Something that still goes on today. We need to be very careful about how we resolve these issues. We must be careful to not just meet in the middle with a compromise as a general rule. But really dig in and see what God has to say about it. We must must not resolve it, but let God do it.
Man, this whole discussion can get pretty deep. On one hand, I don't think it a very inviting act to actively hold non-believers accountable for their lifestyle, but then you can get into topics of abortion and murder and capitol punishment, and there is room to give out a totally different message. But, still, these are people who have "turned to Jesus." And are just looking for a little direction as to how they should live life. They may not understand right away how to have a "relationship with God." And need to to start with these baby steps. I've learned in school, that people need boundaries. These are some boundaries God has given.
11:32 PM
So Thomas, when are ya going to preach repentance and revival? How about this week? I'm all for it, let's go!
11:41 AM
In time dear gina, in time.
1:39 PM
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