Well, I Do Declare!

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                        Acts 2:11

Well, I Do Declare!

by Robert T. Cooper

So I was being cute with the title to this blog post. But you have heard people say that, and perhaps have even said it yourself. It doesn’t me the speaker has said anything noteworthy or profound. It is just an exclamation.

On the other hand, The Declaration of Independence was a document in which the American colonies of Great Britain stated they were putting off colonial status and on their own initiative taking on the status of independent, sovereign states. What was said in that document was indeed noteworthy and in some ways profound.

It was Pentecost Sunday. The Holy Spirit had come upon 120 followers of Jesus who had spent the last 10 days in prayer. The last thing Jesus had said to them was that they would receive power to be His witnesses when the Holy Spirit came upon them. Sure enough, that is what happened that Pentecost morning.

Immediately, the 120 began speaking to each in attendance at the feast. One thing the Holy Spirit did was to enable the 120 to speak in the heart languages of those nationals and internationals who were present.

What did the 120 say when they engaged folks in conversation? Verse 11 says the 120 declared the wonders of God. That is, the 120 told of the noteworthy miracles God had done.

We aren’t given any particular details as to which wonders were declared on that particular day. One may surmise the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Forgiveness of Sin, and more were included.

1)      If you were going to declare the wonders of God, which would you include?

2)      To whom might you declare the wonders of God in the next few days?

Just Sort of Slips Them in There

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                        Acts 1:14

Just Sort of Slips Them in There

by Robert T. Cooper

 

I had been a member of this Glee Club in college. Now I was a graduate, attending one of their concerts in Dallas. There was a fellow still in that choir who had been in the choir at the same time I was. When the concert ended, this fellow made a beeline for me. He wanted to let me know that he had in the intervening time placed his faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. My friend is still walking with Christ today. Sometimes we “accidentally” discover that someone has become a fellow believer in Christ.

 

Acts 1:14 mentions some people who were in this 24/7 prayer meeting during the days between the Ascension and Pentecost. We aren’t surprised to find the Apostles there. We aren’t surprised to find Mary, the mother of Jesus, there. It isn’t even particularly surprising to find “the women” there. (This was a substantial group of women who traveled around with Jesus and His disciples during the 3½ year ministry of Jesus. They frequently were the source for funding for the ministry.)

 

But we are surprised to discover that Jesus’ four brothers were part of the prayer meeting. The last we had heard of these brothers, they had been taunting Jesus about how He behaved as a public figure, taunting because they were not believers in Jesus or in His mission. In fact, at the crucifixion, Jesus gave a verbal will as He hung on the cross. He gave the care of His mother to John, the youngest of the Apostles, rather than to any of His brothers. Yet here, not two months later, the four brothers are with the Apostles at the prayer meeting.

 

What had happened? How had they turned from mockers into disciples? Frankly, the Bible does not tell us. It is a mystery, and will remain so until we see them and can ask them for ourselves. Yet they were converted. And when Luke mentions they were participants in the prayer meeting, he doesn’t make a big deal of it. He just sort of slips them in there. Moreover, two of those brothers ended up writing books of the New Testament. One of those brothers ended up being the Senior Pastor of the Church at Jerusalem, pastor of the Twelve Apostles.

 

It is not an uncommon thing. The person it never occurred to you would eventually come to faith in Christ does become a believer. In fact, God seems to enjoy bringing salvation to unlikely candidates. So don’t give up on people. Perhaps all won’t be converted, but you never know. Only God knows.

 

In the Comments section, we’d love to hear any stories you may have of someone who came to faith in Christ, someone He just sort of slipped in there.

One Key to Answered Prayer

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                        Acts 1:14

One Key to Answered Prayer

by Robert T. Cooper

There was this person in the community. His whole attitude toward God had to do with God being there for him. There was this woman who felt like she just couldn’t get God to give her answers to her prayers. Then there was this other fellow on social media who was upset with God because God didn’t ever do what he wanted; he felt that God was never there for him. There are lots of people like these I have mentioned.

Perhaps you can identify with these acquaintances of mine. Yet do you realize there are some keys to answered prayer? If you applied these keys to your prayer life, you just might find you had more answers to prayer. Even when your prayers seemed to be unanswered, use of these keys would perhaps allow you to better understand what was going on and why things were the way they seemed.

So, what can we learn from Acts 1:14?

The verse begins with the word “they”. The people who were praying in this verse were disciples of Jesus. They had been following Jesus for as long as 3½ years. And it wasn’t casual following. These were people who were known by the fact that if Jesus told them to do something, they did it. Lesson for us: To have your prayers answered, you must be a long-term committed follower of Christ who will do whatever He says, even when you don’t understand, even when no one understands.

The next word in the verse is “all”. We aren’t talking about one person praying. We are talking about a group of people praying. Lesson for us: Find you a dozen or more people who are praying people. Be part of a group like that.

The verse says they were joined together. The notes say that a literal rendition would be that they were continuing with one mind. This group of praying committed followers of Christ had agreed as to what they should pray and they stuck with their agreement. That way everyone in the group was praying the same thing, not necessarily with the same words, but essentially the same request. And this agreement as to what to pray went on over an extended period of time. Lesson for us: Get with your prayer group; agree what everyone in the group is going to pray; then stick with that agreement for an extended period of time.

The verse says they were constantly in prayer. Most people pray a little here and a little there. Not this group of committed Christ followers. They were together frequently and often. In this case, the prayer meeting was 24/7 for 10 days. They had to sacrifice certain other things in order to pray like that, but they were intent on getting an answer from the Lord. Lesson for us: Be with your prayer group as frequently and often as you can. Pray in such a way that your group prayer would be termed “constant” by an outsider.

Leave a comment now about which of these “Lessons for us” you are already employing and which you intend to adopt. If you also want to share your object of prayer, feel free.

Come back in a few days and share what has resulted from your change in prayer strategy. Remember, prayer doesn’t work; our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ works. He is the One Who answers prayer.

God Rules, People Drool

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                              Acts 1:3

God Rules, People Drool

by Robert T. Cooper

That’s a wretched title, but it gets the meaning across. The countdown was on. From Resurrection to Ascension, Jesus had 40 days of appearances to get in His final “on the earth” teachings to His earthly followers. Just about His main topic was the Kingdom of God. Sadly, we don’t talk about this in the USA too much. I’m doing Hillsdale’s Constitution studies with thousands of others, so like many I’m into “all men are created equal.” No one is born with the right to rule. But Jesus says that one of the most important things in all of life is that God rules.

1.      God rules the cosmos.

Why is this important? Because God determines the times set for us and the exact places we will live. I’ll tell you the long story of how the Lord taught me that verse when we get there, but the short version is that He gave us the money to buy a house one block from a classmate of our child. This classmate had a home situation which was helped by our family being there for him. And God did it in such a way that everybody knew it was Him and no coincidence.

In fact, there are no coincidences. Hurricane Isaac causes a delay of the Republican Convention. That means a slightly different group will attend on a slightly different schedule. God moves in big things and in small. A friend met a new neighbor yesterday who casually out of the blue denigrated something; this triggered a reconsideration of a lifestyle decision of the friend. Coincidence? No, for the Lord reminds us to seek Him regarding all decisions on all subjects. He is Lord. He rules.

There are other consequences of God ruling the cosmos. Perhaps you’d like to mention them in the comments section.

2.      Where God rules, His people have His guidance.

We who have placed our faith in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ have the indwelling Holy Spirit. When we pray, it is not an unusual occurrence that our thoughts are directed in ways we know are from God and not from ourselves. This is because God is a real person and we have a real relationship with Him. God communicates with us in such a way that we know that it is really He Who is speaking with us. So this is one manner of guidance available to God’s people. However it is admittedly subjective.

There is also more objective guidance available from God by way of the Holy Bible. Again, the Holy Spirit is crucial to this guidance, for the Spirit interprets the Scripture to us and teaches us how to apply what it says to our daily situations. We have to learn the right ways to apply the Bible, because some ways are not right. Since God is more interested in us having His guidance than we are, He is active in this process.

As you might guess, it is important to have regular times for prayer and Bible study, not rushed, not short. It is important to have times as an individual and times with other believers. And it is important to “do what it says.” (James 1:22)

3.      No dual citizenship.

One of the issues in witnessing to polytheists is that they tend to simply add Jesus to their pantheon of gods. But there is also an issue in witnessing to modern Americans. That issue is that people tend to think of Christianity as simply “praying the prayer” to accept Jesus, and then you go on with your life like you were before, only you get to go to heaven when you die. Or else you go to church several Sundays each year and that’s about all the claim Christ makes on you; all the rest of your life is like it was before. It’s like you continue your citizenship in the lost world and add citizenship in the Kingdom of God as a dual citizen.

The only thing is that the Kingdom of God has a law: No dual citizenship. In order to become a citizen of the Kingdom of God, a person has to renounce citizenship in the world. A more traditional way of saying this is that one must turn from one’s sinful life and turn to Christ. The fancy theological word is repentance.

That’s what Jesus meant when He said that no one can serve two masters. Either you will love the one and hate the other or you will cling to one and despise the other; you cannot serve God and Mammon. Now we usually think of Mammon as the money god, but think larger than that. Jesus was saying no dual citizenship. If you are going to be in God’s Kingdom, to place yourself under the rulership of God, then you must abandon all allegiance to this world. This world is no longer your home. You become an alien here, an ambassador for the Kingdom. Your heart will long for your true home.

Question: React to these things. What else do you know about the Kingdom of God? If the Kingdom was so important to Jesus, why don’t we hear about the Kingdom so much anymore?