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- Apr 25, 2006
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- 18,404
GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT GOD (2)
‘The believers met together…and shared everything…’
Acts 2:44
They took fellowship seriously. We are more than a common-interest-based social club. We’re a family—birth-children of our heavenly Father, blood relatives. The cross made it so. ‘…We have all been baptised into one body by one Spirit…’ (1 Corinthians 12:13 NLT).
Those early disciples valued their relationship. It went beyond merely singing hymns and hearing sermons. They ‘met together…shared everything they had…sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need’ (Acts 2:44-45 NLT).
Do we have such selfless love, caring enough to share everything we own with our brother and sister in need? How many of them shared what they had? ‘All the believers.’ How much did they share? ‘Everything they had.’
God’s Word describes His church as a body. Its members exist individually but they can only function properly in connection with one another. Arms, hands, legs, shoulders, etc. cannot live separately; they must be joined to a body with a head to accomplish their purpose.
The early church survived incredible persecution and achieved amazing things. Why? Because they understood the need to value each other, and to sacrifice personal interest for the sake of the whole.
As isolated, self-reliant, self-promoting individuals they would have been destroyed by the overwhelming force of their enemies. As a believer, you may survive apart from the church, but you can’t thrive.
Your God-given potential will never be realised until you commit wholeheartedly to a local fellowship and invest yourself in serving God’s vision for that church.
written by Bob Gass
‘The believers met together…and shared everything…’
Acts 2:44
They took fellowship seriously. We are more than a common-interest-based social club. We’re a family—birth-children of our heavenly Father, blood relatives. The cross made it so. ‘…We have all been baptised into one body by one Spirit…’ (1 Corinthians 12:13 NLT).
Those early disciples valued their relationship. It went beyond merely singing hymns and hearing sermons. They ‘met together…shared everything they had…sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need’ (Acts 2:44-45 NLT).
Do we have such selfless love, caring enough to share everything we own with our brother and sister in need? How many of them shared what they had? ‘All the believers.’ How much did they share? ‘Everything they had.’
God’s Word describes His church as a body. Its members exist individually but they can only function properly in connection with one another. Arms, hands, legs, shoulders, etc. cannot live separately; they must be joined to a body with a head to accomplish their purpose.
The early church survived incredible persecution and achieved amazing things. Why? Because they understood the need to value each other, and to sacrifice personal interest for the sake of the whole.
As isolated, self-reliant, self-promoting individuals they would have been destroyed by the overwhelming force of their enemies. As a believer, you may survive apart from the church, but you can’t thrive.
Your God-given potential will never be realised until you commit wholeheartedly to a local fellowship and invest yourself in serving God’s vision for that church.
written by Bob Gass
