June 11 (Thursday) -- Can't Stop the Church

The Temple dedication: 1 Kings 8:1-66

The early church’s Git R Done attitude even under persecution: Acts 7:51-8:13

He has cut me free from the chords of the wicked: Psalm 129:1-8

Better be poor & happy than rich & full of strife: Proverbs 17:1


Some people reading the stuff in Acts might think, “Yeah, right, whatever. God doesn’t really give the people in His church the ability to heal, cast out demons, see visions, & forgive the people who persecute them. That’s just fantasy stuff.”

That’s what I love about the Bible – it’s THE TRUTH! :)

Keep in mind that the Book of Acts was written by a doctor named Luke. In many ways, the Book of Acts is a sequel to the Book of Luke (compare Acts 1:1 with Luke 1:1-4). His stated purpose for writing about Jesus & the church was to write an orderly account of everything that happened after he had carefully investigated it.

As Matt blogged in a previous post, Stephen is the first known martyr of the church. And the Holy Spirit used many people in the church to bring others to the church. In some ways, persecution leads to church growth. People get serious about the Lord when they’re forced to bluntly state whether they’re Christian or not.

And check out who was doing a lot of the persecution – Saul. We all know that Saul later is renamed “Paul” when He sees Jesus on the road to Damascus and starts rockin’ and rollin’ for the Lord. But I’m always impressed by God’s ability to use anybody, even someone as loathsome to the early church as Saul.

The Holy Spirit is just waiting to use you for His church. Ask Him to shape you, change you, lead you, empower you, use you, and whatever else He sees fit. And ask Him knowing that He’ll deliver.