By He Reads Truth
Scripture Reading: Acts 1:1-26, Matthew 28:16-20, John 16:7-14
Remember the time Peter walked on water? It was an early morning on the Sea of Galilee, the day after Jesus miraculously fed the five thousand. The disciples saw Jesus walking toward their boat, holy feet standing steady on the waves. Peter, in his trademark zeal, asked to be empowered to do the same. “Lord, if it’s you,…command me to come to you on the water” (Matthew 14:28). Jesus offered a one-word reply: “Come.” So Peter did. He walked on water toward Jesus…until moments later when the sight of the wind and waves replaced his confidence with fear and he began to sink.
It’s an illustration so vivid that Peter’s hard-won lesson is impossible to miss. Like Peter, our central call is to stay focused on Jesus as He empowers us, through the gift of His Spirit, to do what we’ve been called to do.
This same Peter is a key figure in the book of Acts. Despite opposition and imprisonment, he consistently kept his eyes focused on Jesus as he helped build and lead the early Church. The book of Acts is the history book of the earliest Christians, like Peter, who were a brand-new community of Jesus-followers learning how to live out the gospel that had newly transformed every aspect of their lives and worldview. The inspiring, action-packed narrative recounts the spread of Jesus’s message and the growth of the early Church. But it’s important to remember that these first church planters and preachers were not superheroes; they were sinners saved by grace, ordinary people with an extraordinary Savior. The spread of the Church was fueled not by flawless strategy but by earnest faith in Jesus.
Pastor and theologian N. T. Wright notes that the book of Acts shows us how “the method of the kingdom will match the message of the kingdom.” The gospel is the good news of Jesus for the sinner, the suffering, the vulnerable, the misunderstood, and the overconfident. And the gospel is spread by these same unlikely ambassadors—not by their might or power but by the Holy Spirit living in and among them.
The birth of the early Church is the story of God’s kingdom alive in His people and spread by His Spirit at work in us. It is the true story of where we came from and where we are going. As you set out to read, ask God to guide you by His Spirit even now, training your eyes to focus on Him in carrying out the work He’s called us to do.
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