Sunday, January 14, 2007

Lena's Discipleship Journalin' to Acts 11 Today

Religion is a man made interpretation of what God has set up. People sometimes don’t understand it when Pastors say, “Let’s not be religious”. They think he is saying let’s not be good. He is saying, “Let’s not take God’s words of truth and construe them into out own ideas and use it to further our own successes”.
Religion is a man made system of good rules and regulations that say, if we do these things we’ll be truly good and possibly get closer to God. We could never be good enough to reach God. It is only by the acceptance of the shed blood of Jesus Christ that we can get close to God at all. Relationship is completely different. God is looking to have a relationship with man. Jesus made a way for any and all person, no matter what the sin situation is, to be close with God.
This passage is a great demonstration of this type of mindset. The Jewish leader asked, “Weren’t we supposed to stay separated from these kinds of people?” Notice he is angered by a violation of the man’s religious practice. Notice when Jesus was on earth, he was all about upsetting religious practices. Why? Because, these practices stood in the way of a person having a personal relationship with God. They lie to people to make them think they could ever earn their way to a righteous relationship with God. There is no earning of the right to approach God or become His friend. Only Jesus’ blood did that for us.
Yes, what we do has an affect on how well our relationship goes, but there is always a way back towards a restored or enhanced relationship with Christ.
Notice Peter had been religiously trained to know right and wrong. He’d memorized the rules and regulations of being a good Jewish boy. Knowing and living strictly by those rules caused him to contest God, but he had something that he did not have when he learned the rules and regulations. He had God’s very own spirit alive inside of Him with a living voice in which they could relate together. He didn’t have to go to the priest and ask what God was saying, he listened and God told Him! God told him more than what His words of the law had been taught him. He was being told the words of life for that day and time, he was hearing the plan and will of God unfold. The law had led him to this day, kept him for this day, but the day was here and would be gone and God was ready to take humankind the next step, telling the rest of the story! And a beautiful story it is.
The Lord is so faithful to confirm His words to us so we are sure. We must listen and believe to release those words of confirmation; if we look and listen they will come, just as these men came to Peter’s door.
Listen, He will tell you how everyone in your household will be saved! This is why we are in the families we are in. If one person in a family will receive the truth of the word of God in a personal and relational way, there is great hope for each family. This is God’s will, to use a person in each family as an example of His saving love. This is why relationship inside of each family must be repaired and restored and believed God for the restoration of. Judgment and religious condemnation do not work well in being an example to family members, goodness and love go a long way! Being religious and preaching at people can frustrate and sabotage the work of the Holy Spirit in lives inside of families. Every person wants to see a demonstration of faith that is alive. Those who believe are witnesses in daily demonstration. Religion has deceived us into thinking we can preach what we don’t live rather than allowing our lives to preach what we believe. People are a lot wiser than that, they believe the life lived, not the words spoken without the back up of life force.
It is a privilege to be able repent of our sins and receive the free gift of eternal life, one we could never afford to pay for ourselves. The believers were told by a prophetic word, that there would be great needs, before seeing the actual needs they responded by sending help for the need ahead of the time that the need appeared! Do we ever act that quickly on words from God, prophetic words given by physical persons? That’s faith in loving and obedient action.