I have decided to post our Sunday morning messages on the blog so that Cell Members who are online can have the notes prior to their cell meetings.

Sunday 19th June
One Day Acts 3:1-4:4 !

Life in the Spirit means any day can be a day for a miracle
The day started out as routine, Peter and John were on the way to prayers at the Temple and the lame man was on his way to his begging station. But when Peter and John and the lame man met, the disciples abandoned the prayer meeting and the lame man gave up begging forever!
What turned this routine day into a day of miracles? It was the fact that the disciples had begun living a life in the Spirit and life in the Spirit means any day can be a day of miracles.
The lame man had been coming to the Temple for years where God was believed to dwell but nothing changed year in year out. The best the people coming to the temple could do was to give a few coins to ease their consciences as they passed by.
Peter and John confidently offered the man much more.

Their assurance of the presence of Christ and of their position in Christ meant they could act with authority that Christ had assured them he had given them. (see Matthew 28:18-19)
And if we are filled with the Spirit and know the presence of Jesus and our position in him then we too need to recognise that we have all the authority to build God’s Kingdom and to complete the mission that He sent us on!

Life in the Spirit means any day can be a day we are called upon to share our faith
Peter and John were not setting out to do a bit of evangelism, they were just going to pray but when an opportunity arose to share their faith they took it.
Once again Peter is put in the position of explaining something that was already happening to a crowd that had come to see what was going on. I wonder sometimes if this is the problem in the church today. We ask a crowd to come so that something will happen, whilst perhaps if something powerful and life-changing was happening among us, we might have less trouble getting a crowd.

Not many of us have been lame and then healed but if we have had our lives transformed by Jesus then it should show and we will need to explain what makes the difference. Peter acknowledged the healing was down to Jesus. What happened to the man can only be explained by referring to Jesus.
What about you and me? Does it take Jesus to explain the reason we are the kind of people we are? We often come across people who are insecure, or aggressive or ambitious and we try to explain their attitudes and behaviour. Some will say “They are like that because of nature. They belong to this or that family. It must be in their genes. “ Other’s will say that they behave a certain way because of an event or a circumstance which the person is attempting to compensate for. All this may be true but a life of holiness is explained by one thing. Jesus.

Life in the Spirit means any day can be a day we meet opposition
Alan and I had a conversation earlier this week. We do talk to each other sometimes!
“Look at the weather today, says Alan. “It’s horrible, yesterday it was lovely!” And I said, “I can’t believe you. You are nearly 52 years old and you have lived in this country all your life and you are still surprised that the weather can change from one day to the next!
We live in a changeable climate, we should get used to it. There are just some things in life that we should expect.
When God moves there is always opposition. And that is certainly what happened one day in Jerusalem when a lame man got healed.
In the Western world, Christians rarely face persecution to the levels we see in other parts of the world. That does not mean we haven’t been opposed. Satan instead has used other tactics. He has attacked the western church with worldliness, selfish pride leading to compromise in an attempt to gain status and acceptance in the world.
It is a very successful tactic. A martyr can impress unbelievers with his courage and faith; the self-centered, compromising Christian thinks he will win the world by being like the world only to find that the world despises him for his spinelessness.
I have a conviction that complaining about our lost Christian heritage to the world will not be remotely as effective as repenting of our sin and weakness before God.
And having done that whatever the cost, we will speak up for Jesus.
Having successfully arrested the two disciples the authorirites were unable to arrest the influence of the gospel. The number of Christians just kept increasing.

One day.
What a day it was; miracles, crowds, evangelistic results, and preachers in jail. We don’t have many days like that these days but you know I believe that we could if we lived more in tune with the Spirit of God.
When we truly live in the Spirit, any day can be a day for a miracle. When we truly live in the Spirit any day can be a day to speak for Jesus. When we truly live in the Spirit any day can be a day when we might have to sacrifice our own comfort for the sake of the gospel. When we truly live in the Spirit any day can be a day when people accept Jesus as their Saviour.

God bless

Carol