PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Acts 24:5–9
“We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him. By examining him yourself you will be able to learn the truth about all these charges we are bringing against him.”
The other Jews joined in the accusation, asserting that these things were true.
CONSIDER THIS
Here at Acts 24, as we are making the turn toward the homestretch of the Acts of the Apostles, it is a good moment for an aerial view. It is essential in life, particularly in the midst of difficulties, to try and get to a high place where we can see the larger landscape of our lives and ask some bigger and harder questions and perhaps gain a deeper and wider perspective.
Isn’t it fascinating how this entire story of the movement of God’s kingdom and the advance of the church Jesus is building has come to an apparent grinding halt as we find ourselves in the coastal town of Caesarea in the Roman-occupied nation of Israel (a piece of ground about the size of the state of New Jersey) in a courtroom presided over by a provincial governor at litigation between the religious establishment of Israel and a Roman citizen who was a Jewish man named Paul of Tarsus?
In the scheme of things, it appears to be a very small and even insignificant story. The stories that turn out to be the most significant stories in history most always begin (and end) in obscurity and apparent insignificance. They most often occur in the midst of incredibly challenging times, when the chips are down and backs are against the wall. The actors in such stories have no idea of the significance of the part they are playing. They are mostly doing the next good, and often hard, thing. They often feel like abysmal failures; taking one step forward and half a dozen backward. They are, as we rehearsed last week, experiencing the challenging realities of being, “hard pressed on every side, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down.” And when they can manage to catch the occasional aerial view, they breathe the gifted and rarified air of knowing—because of Jesus with, for, in, and through them—they are, “not crushed, not in despair, not abandoned, not destroyed.” Therefore, by the power of the Holy Spirit, they persevere. Their goal is never greatness; only goodness.
I saw an image the other day with a progression of four statements. I can’t unsee it. I think about it all the time. If I know you, and I think I do, I suspect it will have the same impact on you. Here they are:
- Hard times produce people of strong character.
- People of strong character produce prosperous times.
- Prosperous times produce people of weak character.
- People of weak character produce hard times.
The latter half of the last century was a period of enormous prosperity for many people. It was wrought by the strong character of faith-filled generations who lived through the hard times of the first half of that century. My sense of things is that the ensuing prosperity has lulled generations to sleep, and led to significant weakness in character. Leisure and entertainment seem to be at an all-time high. Notice the utter flourishing of the alcohol industry with the proliferation of wine, bourbon, craft beer, and the rapid rise of the legalized marijuana industry, and the stratospheric rise of the legalized gambling and casino industry with sports books literally opening up everywhere. We are now living in a very broken moment in history characterized by multitudes of broken people (many in church) who are not dealing with their brokenness, but who are opting instead for the distraction of entertainment and the medication of a thousand substances. For all these reasons and more, hard times are approaching again and perhaps have already arrived. It’s why I keep saying—chiefly to myself and also to you:
WAKE UP, SLEEPERS! RISE FROM THE DEAD! AND CHRIST WILL SHINE ON YOU!
He is our character. And he must win the battle! He will do it through our sowing.
Sow like a champion today!
THE PRAYER OF TRANSFORMATION
Lord Jesus, I am your witness. I long to be like you.
I receive your righteousness and release my sinfulness.
I receive your wholeness and release my brokenness.
I receive your fullness and release my emptiness.
I receive your peace and release my anxiety.
I receive your joy and release my despair.
I receive your healing and release my sickness.
I receive your love and release my selfishness.
Come, Holy Spirit, transform my heart, mind, soul, and strength so that my consecration becomes your demonstration; that our lives become your sanctuary. For the glory of God our Father, amen.
THE JOURNAL PROMPTS
Have you ever considered that you could be playing a significant, albeit small, part in a massive and most consequential story? Renounce grandiosity. Embrace humility. Play the long game and know it will matter more than you can imagine. Do you find yourself swimming in a sea of distraction, going from entertainment to entertainment, from restaurant to restaurant, from bottle to bottle, in an effort to numb the pain?
THE HYMN
Today we will sing “Rise Up, O Men of God!” (hymn 518) from our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise. Get your copy here.
For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt
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2 Responses
While history doesn’t actually repeat itself, anyone with eyes to see, is able to discern that there are noticeable cycles that occur repeatedly throughout human history. Just as the prior Christian revival of the early fifties through mid sixties followed the Great Depression and two world wars; I truly believe that this current period of political turmoil, economic uncertainty, and obvious corruption in every major societal influencing institution, including the institutional church, could be the precursor to the next revival, the Great Awakening. How we respond as God’s chosen people will determine how soon it occurs. We must keep in mind that sanctification never occurs on the mountain top, but rather in the dark valleys of life.
“We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him. By examining him yourself you will be able to learn the truth about all these charges we are bringing against him.
The other Jews joined in the accusation, asserting that these things were true.” (A very few years later in 70 AD the Jewish temple and all of Jerusalem were leveled to the ground by the Roman army.)
Last night it came to me that I was to write about accusations this morning. I wasn’t comfortable with that so throughout the night I tried to think about something else to write about, but nothing would come to me. Then this morning I came to WUC and saw the word “accusation” in the Scripture that JD quoted. So I came back into alignment with what I felt prompted to write about last night, one thought at a time.
A society caught up in and swept along by the distractions of angry, unproven accusations cannot long endure.
When accusations are repeatedly made and boldly asserted without solid evidence people will believe and repeat them whether they are true or not.
Often it is the people whose arguments are the weakest who make the loudest accusations.
Accusations aren’t proof, no matter how confidently they’re stated.
The people who resort to unproven accusations are often the guilty ones.
It’s easier to discredit other people’s ideas with smear tactics than it is to promote your own case on its own merit.
If you don’t know the full story, there’s a strong possibility that your accusations are false.
Accusations made by people who refuse to humbly admit their own wrongdoing are usually false.
When a person verbally abuses people until they get mad and return his insults, he usually acts like a victim and says that he’s the one who is being mistreated.
Unproven accusations are often an attempt to divert people’s attention from your own guilt.
Accusations don’t prove anything. Without strong evidence they are only drama that distracts from the truth.
Be slow to believe accusations. There’s a good chance that they aren’t true.
People often use unsubstantiated accusations to try to hide their own insecurity from other people.
The spirit of accusation is the devil, and the Bible specifically calls him the accuser.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t accuse. He knows the full story about each one of us humans. He calls us to His presence and compassionately woos us to turn away from our darkness and deception and toward the honesty and humility of God’s Light.