“Some devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him.” (Acts 8:2)

Don’t confuse Christian joy with never being sad.  Christians are often very sad.  When Stephen was martyred, the brethren loudly mourned him.  He was their friend and their brother, and they felt the loss keenly.

Christians are not always happy, but we are meant to be devoutly hopeful and joyous.  We store our treasures in heaven, and the moth and rust of this broken world cannot decay our eternal hope, but we definitely feel beat up and bruised down here in this world from time to time.

Our Lord was called the Man of Sorrows, so we do not fear sorrow as a weakness, and He wept, so sometimes we do, too.  Jesus was sad; He cried, but He also had a joy set before Him, and it sustained Him just like our joy sustains us.  We don’t fear the tears of this life; we just will not be defined by them.

“…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)

Matthew 4:4 #Biblebites

“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.” (Acts 7:51)

Who can resist God?  Turns out – you can.

The ability to resist God’s will is unique to the human species.  Only we are created in the image of God here on this planet, and our ability to choose (also known as “free will”) is found only in mankind.

How do we resist God? The answer is in two things: heart and ears.

If we refuse to listen to Him (our ears), we resist God’s will because we never learn it.  We remain ignorant because we don’t know what we don’t know, and we never take the time or offer the effort needed to remove our ignorance.  We choose to be dumb and blind to His Word, and God refuses to make us know what we don’t want to.

And if our ears don’t do the resisting, our heart is the second option.  We simply close our hearts to what God says.  If we sit in the pews, hear the sermons, and never let those words touch our hearts, the lessons stay in the church building… which is exactly where the devil wants God’s Word to stay.  Our hearts hear the will of God and deflect it with excuses, procrastination, or apathy.

Only when our ears are open and our hearts are soft can the will of God be heard and applied.  Only when both ears and heart are used does a man stop resisting Him and start being transformed by Him.

Matthew 4:4 #Biblebites

“The statement found approval with the whole congregation…” (Acts 6:5)

One of the beautiful things about Acts 6 is that when there was a problem in the congregation, the whole congregation rallied behind finding a solution.

Acts 6 doesn’t say the church divided up and started new congregations because they didn’t like the apostles’ solution to the widow problem.

Acts 6 doesn’t say they grumbled behind the apostles’ backs and talked about how out of touch the twelve were.

Nor does Acts 6 share how the Christians in Jerusalem took to the internet to passive-aggressively point out the flaws in the apostles’ plans for feeding the widows equally.

Instead, Acts 6 records how the apostles talked with the church about the problem, why they needed help with a solution, and the church rallied around the leadership in approval and effort.

That’s a beautiful recipe for unity if ever there was one.

Matthew 4:4 #Biblebites

“We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this Name, and yet, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this Man’s blood upon us.” (Acts 5:28)

When we are more concerned about the consequences of the Scriptures than the validity of them, we are guaranteed to come to the wrong conclusions.  The Jewish Council wanted the apostles to stop talking about Jesus because if people believed the message, the council feared it would make them look bad.

Here’s the truth: the message of Jesus makes us all look bad.  It makes us look like sinners and deceivers and blasphemers and heart-murderers.  It makes us look that way because we are.  It’s a valid truth that should be recognized.  Don’t make the mistake of rejecting truth because of its implications.  It is what it is.

Honesty and humility have the bravery to face the realities of truth.  We are sinners.  The Bible doesn’t make us look bad; it just shows us the way things actually are… and then it shows us the Way out of our predicament.

“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

Matthew 4:4 #Biblebites

“And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul…”

(Acts 4:32a)

Unity is hard to create and easy to lose.  It is found in a common vision and service.  The early church was knit together as one because they were all actively serving Christ day by day, sacrificing for that service, and sharing in persecution for their faith together.  The active nature of their service, sacrifice, and persecution led to unity of heart and soul.  They were all in the same proverbial “foxhole”, and it banded them together as brothers and sisters.

Conversely, unity is lost when we aren’t expecting anything of each other but to show up on Sunday and be entertained.  We become consumers of religion instead of soldiers for the King… and consumers are notoriously fickle and picky.  We become picky about how we are treated, picky about decisions the shepherds make, and fickle in our willingness to volunteer because it doesn’t match what we feel like doing.  Service is replaced with complaints, and expectations of ourselves are replaced by expectations of what others ought to be doing.

In short, unity begins with asking yourself what you can give up for the body and what you can do to help.  Are there prayers to be lifted up to God, elderly to care for, the fatherless to be raised, lost to be reached, or babes in Christ to be encouraged?  Of course!  Pick one and get to work.

Matthew 4:4 #Biblebites

“For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.”

(Acts 3:26)

Jesus was sent to the Jewish nation first, a blessing who came in an unexpected package.  Jesus’ life didn’t embody the power and prestige that the average Hebrew expected.  They were looking for a king, and Jesus arrived a carpenter.  The appearance of Jesus wasn’t the only thing they struggled with – they also had a hard time stomaching the message.  The message was that He would bless them by turning them from their wickedness.  They didn’t think they needed to change, and they didn’t think they were wicked.

We struggle with the same thing.  The blessing of “turning” is the blessing of the opportunity to repent and be transformed into what God intends for us to be.  However, we often are less excited about Him remodeling our lives than we ought to be.  We want God to make some minor adjustments and tweaks to our life and then shower us with blessings for our limited alterations.  But that really isn’t what God is planning for our lives.  He turns fishermen into evangelists and shepherds into national leaders.  God rarely makes small moves.  He is interested in a full rebuild of your life, not a tiny facelift on Sundays.

It is a blessing that God sent His son to turn us from our wicked ways to a new path, but we must be open to that new path and recognize it as the gift it is.  Your work in the kingdom will likely require you to dump your dreams so that He can implement His.

Matthew 4:4 #Biblebites

“Brethren, what shall we do?”

(Acts 2:37)

Peter had just told his fellow countrymen what God had done.  God had sent His Son.  God had sacrificed His Son for them.  God had made a plan for grace, mercy, and forgiveness.  God had done the unthinkable act of love.

So, they asked what they should do… and that is the logical response.  God has done what we cannot, but now we must respond.  We have sinned and fallen short.  We are in need of His grace and compassion.  He has offered it, and we must do something about it.

What did Peter tell them was the appropriate response?  “Repent and be baptized each and every one of you for the remission of your sins.” (Acts 2:38)

What will your response be?

Matthew 4:4 #Biblebites

“These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer…”

(Acts 1:14a)

Prayer is a unifying practice.  It unifies our minds with God as we share with Him our struggles, joys, thanks, and petitions.  It unifies our minds with others when we seek Him as a group and devote ourselves to the common cause of intercession through prayer.  When heads are bowed together, hearts are knit together.  It is a beautiful and sacred thing to share in prayer with one mind.

We ought to do it more often.  When God’s people gather together for the purpose of prayer, we do heavenly work by wielding a spiritual weapon.  We put on the shoes of prayerful preparation together (see Eph 6:15) and leave the time of shared petition ready to do more for Him whom we sought together with like minds.

We need to pray more together.  Independent prayer is no replacement for the fellowship of prayerful saints.  The marriage that kneels together by their bed each night is not quickly torn asunder by the devil’s temptations.  The brethren who devote themselves to pray from house to house will find themselves of one mind in other things, too.  Prayer binds us to each other as it binds us to Him.  I suspect that churches, families, and marriages which suffer great division do not often pray together as they ought.

Matthew 4:4 #Biblebites

“He has risen; He is not here…”

(Mark 16:6)

The most important event in the history of mankind was announced with only seven words.  There are many things about Christianity that have been contested, many doctrines people take umbrage with, but the empty tomb remains.

The most powerful evidence of the empty tomb is that those closest to the tomb, and therefore most likely to be skeptical of the resurrection, were the ones to first convert.  Christianity spread from Jerusalem within weeks of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.  The folks who could have easily investigated the claims of the empty tomb by taking a short stroll outside their own city’s walls instead accepted it as a reality.  The spread of Jesus’ gospel came with conviction and force from the epicenter of the resurrection events.  Skeptics of the Bible must grapple with the fact that those in the best position to squash His teachings and with a clear reason to do so (Jews didn’t want to accept Jesus as the Messiah) instead accepted and spread the message of Jesus throughout the world.

He has risen – He is not here.  Seven words that changed the world.

Matthew 4:4 #Biblebites

“For he [Pilate] was aware that the chief priests had handed Him over because of envy.”

(Mark 15:10)

Envy is an ugly thing, and it will make people do ugly things.  Sometimes, it even contorts people’s faces in a way which makes them look ugly, too!

Envy is a feeling of discontent or resentment at the success, abilities, or good fortune of others.  Envy is nasty, and other people can often see it on you.  Pilate saw the chief priests envy Jesus, and he knew that was the real reason behind their vendetta with Him.  It had nothing to do with justice and everything to do with the fact that Jesus was the kind of leader they weren’t.

It can be hard to rejoice in the success of others, especially if they are doing similar jobs as you.  I have no problem rejoicing when someone succeeds in an entirely different field than me, but it is hard to feel good about the guy who gets the promotion when I applied for it, too.

We must fight envy because it harms our character.  It also harms the church.  When men who don’t become elders become envious of those who do, that leads to problems and hurt.  When we count the successes of others (a new baby, a new job, a happy marriage, etc.) as reasons to dislike them, we take the blessings God is giving to others and use them as a weapon to sever our hearts from theirs.  That’s just wrong.  It’s also sad.

Envy is hurtful, and it can only be driven away by contentment and gratitude.  When I’m happy with who I am and where God is using me, there is no room for the green-eyed monster of jealousy to whisper into my heart.  Next time you start feeling envy, I recommend a hearty dose of grateful prayer in your inner room.  It will drive that beast away in no time.

Matthew 4:4 #Biblebites