Saturday, September 12, 2015

Acts 2:42 "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."

Devotion. Apparently little else mattered. The body of the believers had just experienced the powerful filling of the Holy Spirit, their body had just grown by three thousand after Peter' fiery Pentecost sermon. Filled by the Holy Spirit, they devoted themselves to four things: the apostle's teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, prayer. They were fully committed to these things as they dived whole heartedly in.

They devoted themselves to the apostle's teaching and to the fellowship. In Acts 20, Paul speaks to a crowd of believers all night long. The believers in Berea "received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures everyday to see if what Paul said was true." (Acts 17:11) Acts 4:32 says that, "All the believers were one in heart and mind." Such was their unity that they didn't count even their possesions as their own. Some even sold land, and brought the money to the apostles.

They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and to prayer. After Peter and John returned from a short imprisonment they meet with the believers and told them what had happenee and Acts 4:2 says that, "When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God." They praised the name of God and implored him to show his power through the apostles. It says that "After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

Their devotion is significant. They did not just bring in half hearted attempts at doing these things. And look at the results! A body of beleivers, eager to learn, unified to heart and mind. Praying together and seeing the Holy Spirit come boldly. Here in the IGNITE program there is constant opportunity for these things. Nearly everyday we are in class listening to the Word of a God being taught. Our class is together all the time. Communion is served occasionally. We pray before events, go on prayer walks, pray as a group at the closing of the day and pray with our teams. Yes these things surround me and often are required of me but it is up to me to do them with devotion, to go the extra mile, to put my whole heart into it. Half hearted devotion is not really even devotion at all. Half hearted attempts will not produce the fruit that we see in Acts, a unified body of beleivers being filled mightily with the Holy Spirit.

The Lord has been impressing on my heart my need to put all of my heart into whatever I do. Joel 2:12-13 says, "...'return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.' Rend your heart and not your garments..." He wants ALL of my heart. He does not want just the outward motions of repentance, but a heart attitude. In application, my goal today is to apply my mind more to whatever we are doing today. I also want to intentionally seek unity by praying for each individual in my class.

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