Acts 2 Living – Part II

As discussed last Thursday, Acts 2:42-47 tells us about the first church – the fellowship of the believers.  Verse 42 tells us, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” “Devoted themselves.”  Notice that it was an individual decision to…become the church.  Each believer submitted themselves to full devotion to Christ.  What did that look like?  How did they keep the fire burning white hot inside themselves to be fully devoted?

I see 4 distinct ways in which they devoted themselves, and the first is to the apostle’s teaching.  The second is to the fellowship.  The believers submitted themselves to relationships with other Christ followers.  Fellowship was so significant that they not only met regularly as a large body of believers, but also in small groups within their homes.  They did not choose to do one or the other, but both.  Verses 44 – 46 say, “All the believers were together and had everything in common.  Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.  They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts…”

As a fellowship of believers, we too benefit from both corporate worship as a body and from worship in small groups of believers to personally study and practice our faith.  We are challenged to share our possessions, our resources, our talents, and our faith with anyone as they have need as the first church did.  Submitting these things in full devotion to Christ keeps God on the throne, not the material things or personal talents that we can get caught up in.  We act selflessly rather than selfishly.  Our fires can be quenched when we draw the line at any of these things, or when we neglect meeting together in large and small groups.  We draw our strength from God and one another. — Our encouragement from God and one another.  And our heart grows in love for God and one another when we devote ourselves to the fellowship.
~ Kay Evenwel

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 9:00 am and is filed under Acts 2 Living, Week 3: Ring of Fire. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.