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Friday, August 22, 2008

What are you doing?

Hey guys! So on Thursday night some of us from Reno went down to Yerington for youth group. It was a love fest reunion. Great to see the Nevada youth group back together again!

Anyway...we listened to Acts chapter 2 where the promise of the Holy Spirit was fulfilled in Jerusalem and came like wind and fire on everyone waiting in the upper room. It brought tongues like fire and everyone started speaking in different languages about the glory of God. It was so loud that people outside that had come from all over the Mediterranean could hear them talking in their own languages about God.

So Peter, the fisherman-turned-apostle that walked on water and denied Jesus three times, got up in front of the crowd of people that accused everyone of being drunk and 9am and clarified some things. He quoted some scripture from the Old Testament that told of this kind of crazy stuff happening when God gave us the Holy Spirit, like prophesying, speaking in tongues, seeing visions and having dreams. (Does any of this sound familiar? Vancouver?)

So then Peter connected the dots for them and showed them how Jesus is God. It was through Jesus that God would change everything. When Jesus still walked the earth, they expected the Messiah to rule as a physical King of Israel here on earth. So when Jesus died, all those hopes of him being the Messiah were smashed. Peter explained to them that it was through Jesus that God did establish the King of Israel, but bigger than just on earth. It changed the way that all people related to God. Men, women, children, slaves, and people from all nations were equal and could have equal access to God.

So Peter gave an alter call. And the church grew from between 100-150 to 3000 in one day. They believed, repented and were baptized in the name of Jesus. Then they all started living together in community, sharing everything, eating together, talking about Jesus everywhere they went, praising God together. No one lacked anything. And miracles started to happen.

Here's Acts 2:42 "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."

So Jon made this matrix with some sweet drawings of a book, a guy on his knees praying, a hamburger, and stick figure people with their arms around each other (black, white, red, and an Asian child). And here's the question: what are you doing to continue what God had done and is doing in your life? Of those four things listed in Acts 2:42, what are you doing this week?

Let the blogging begin! (Send me your email address if you want to be added as an author to the blog and you can start your own posts.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kelsey and I had lunch today at a park in the shade. It was so nice! Yay! Nuti

Noj Rotsap said...

I noticed (actually at vancouver), that most of Jesus' parables had agricultural metaphors in them. Then I thought about it, and realized that really we need to communicate them in a practical way for an urban society. So, devoting myself to the apostle's (actually Jesus') teaching, I am trying to faithfully recompose the parables over time. Just finished with the prodigal son story on my blizog.