A Spirit-Filled Church

"God doesn't have a mission for His church, He created the church for His mission!"

God plans to use Spirit-filled Christians to advance the message and ministry of the gospel to the end of the earth.

Today's devotional comes from Acts 2:41-42:

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Yesu Nakupenda is “I love you, Jesus” in Swahili. I absolutely loved visiting Kenya, Africa, where my friends taught me this phrase, and many others. The people, the food, and the beautiful culture captivated my heart. And oh, how they worship! I'm pretty sure the Kenyan people will be leading worship in Heaven! It was straight fire!

Furthermore, it was a blessing to learn what God was doing in the church and the Christians there. Even though we were there to serve and submit under their leadership, it was a privilege to serve alongside Kenyan pastors and preach to God's people. This trip took about five weeks as we visited and ministered to over 30 churches. Some were big into the thousands, and others were very small.

One church, however, will forever be etched in my heart. I was asked to share God's word with a church in a remote village, so we got the team and traveled several hours. My pastor friend said, "Alright, we are here!" So I jumped out of the van and looked around. All I saw was a beautiful field with a tree and a hut made of four branches and a plastic cover for a roof. Then immediately, a bunch of kids ran out with big smiles.

My friend began to tell me this is the area's local church. They planted it several years ago for the farmers here. This local church only had a handful of adults and kids. Nevertheless, we began to worship, preach and pray. I can't begin to explain how Spirit-filled this small remote local church was. My heart gets full, and my eyes get a bit watery as I share it with you. God was teaching me through this: what set apart this church was not its programs or structure, but its spirit-filled fellowship with Christ and Christians.

This is what set apart the early church in Acts 2.

As we read Acts 2, we are not to follow their programming or how they did church, but we are to be reminded to be Spirit-filled.

Remember the context of Acts. Thousands of Jews came to Jerusalem for a feast from abroad. Peter preached the gospel, and 3000 souls were saved and baptized… There were 3000 spiritual babies! So, Peter was thinking they would soon scatter and face the world and its temptations. So what is the priority? It was their fellowship with Christ.

Verse 42 mentions how they devoted themselves to what will deepen their fellowship with Christ, which was a devotion to the apostle's teaching, fellowship with other believers, breaking of bread, and prayer. All of this keeps us Spirit-filled and deepens our relationship with Christ. It's important to note that their first devotion was to the apostle's teaching.

The question for us this January of 2022 is, are you devoted to the Bible? The Word of God gives us direction, and prayer provides us with the power to live it out. But the first baby step is to slow down and meditate on the Bible. Friends, what a great opportunity we have as we start the new year to re-dedicate ourselves to the Bible.

What is your daily rhythm in reading and meditating on God's word? Perhaps we have never read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation for some of us. If so, pray and consider this an invitation to finish it in 2022. How awesome would it be if, by January of 2023, you got to read the whole Bible once! Let's go! If this is something you want to do, send me an email, and I would love to pray that this step will deepen your walk with Christ.

I pray now that, as the word of God becomes your daily rhythm, it will give you daily direction and purpose. Amen.

Pastor Sean

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