So. If you are anything like me when I first started to read through the New Testament then Acts is not your favourite book. In fact, as it was to me, it might just look like a record of someone's roadtrip filled with millions of name of places and people you don't recognize and some you don't know how to say. I also never liked history class, and that is also what this seems like at first.
But you know, the book of Acts is in the Bible and as God's Word it must be useful for something (2Tim3:16-17). Really digging into it and studying it helped me see it for so much more.
Persecution. Prayer. Visions and Miracles. Controversy. Missions Trips. Earthquakes. Kings. Trials. Shipwrecks. Most importantly, the Holy Spirit being poured out left and right on people near and far.
This is so much more than the disciples could have imagined, but it is just a taste of what is to come.
John 14:12 Jesus says "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these".
Acts is Luke's second book, and is almost the opposite of what he wrote in his gospel. Where Jesus had been teaching and rebuking the Pharisees drawing closer and closer to Jerusalem, ending in the cross, His death and resurrection. Now we see the Spirit poured out so that the gospel may advance forcefull from Jerusalem to the ends of the Earth (Acts1:8).
Already we have seen great things: Pentecost and speaking in the tongues of many nations, Peter preaching and thousands coming to repentence and receiving Jesus, even healing a crippled man.
Best part: We get to be part of the action and see God do great things!
Acts was written without and ending. As we read it let us learn from the acts of the apostles so that we too may go forward and out with the gospel in the boldness of the Spirit.
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