Monday (14/04/2014) - Read Acts 4:32-37
How is described the crowd of believers? Why? Why there were no needy people among them? How was the testifying of the apostles? Who was Joseph and what did he do?
More and more people were coming to the Lord. This was happening because the testimony of the apostles was given with great power and there was a great grace upon them. If we want to see people be saved then our testimony has to be with great power. Remember Acts 1:8? The power comes when the Holy Spirit comes over us, then we can become witnesses as far as the ends of the earth. Seek this power, seek more of God’s Presence. That way you will receive more of this power and there will be a special grace (anointing) over your life to testify.
We can see that those people’s conversion was genuine. How? By the way they changed their way of thinking and living. The passage describes the crowd of believers as being one in heart and mind. This means they all had the same focus: Jesus. Nothing else was important. This caused them to be released from the material things. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own. They simply shared everything they had, specially helping those in need up to the point there were no needy persons among them.
Such believer was Joseph, also known as Barnabas, a name given to him by the apostles. Barnabas means “son of consolation” or “son of encouragement”. Barnabas was an encourager. He would see a sad person and he would get closer to try to bring some joy, to pray for him, to affirm him, to bring consolation to him. He was also moved by generosity. He had a field, sold it and gave the money to the church to be used for God’s work. And through this example of testimony many other people were converting and being changed in their values towards serving one another, towards their priorities, towards their finances and material possessions. How have you changed after your conversion? Do people notice something different in you? Do people try to follow your example? What can you do to make
your testimony more effective?
No comments:
Post a Comment