This week's Scripture focus is Acts 2:42-47.  That Scripture has served as my "model" for the Church since my teens.  The events in the passage occur immediately after the church was "born" on the first Christian Pentecost.  After the Holy Spirit came to 120 believers who had been waiting and praying fervently for His coming, those believers ran out into the crowded streets of Jerusalem and told the Good News of Jesus to everyone who would listen.  The Spirit gave them the ability to speak to people from all over the world in the native language of those people.  The result?  3,000 people believed.  3,000 people were saved.  The church grew from 120 people to 3,120 people in one day!

Acts 2:42-47 tells us how those first believers lived.  We could sum it up by saying, they lived their lives TOGETHER.  ⁴²All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. ⁴³A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. ⁴⁴And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. ⁴⁵They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. ⁴⁶They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—⁴⁷all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. Take a moment and read each of the verses again.  Pause at the end of each verse and ask yourself, "What would happen in my family, in our congregation if we did this?  Did you do it?  Did you read each verse and ask yourself the question?  I know what you're thinking--that was 2,000 years ago, they had more time than I do.  They didn't have all the commitments I have.  Really?  The biggest commitment of life 2,000 years ago was providing enough food to live.  They had similar amounts of time each day to us--24 hours.  (They actually had LESS time, because they went to bed when it got dark, since they didn't have electricity to give them the artificial ability to keep going.)

Granted it takes a lot of energy and effort to live life the way the early church lived it.  Granted it takes intentionality --- dare I call it DEVOTION --- to live the way the early church lived, but the results were incredible and eternal!  Each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.  That means at least 356 new believers were being added every year to the ranks of those who had been lost but now were found.  The actual number of people being "added" was far beyond that according to the accounts we read in the rest of Acts.  Let me ask an important question:  At the end of your life, what do you want to leave behind?  Do you want to leave behind a large bank account for someone else to spend?  Do you want to leave behind a legacy of having done lots of things that made you happy for a moment?  Do you want to leave behind a legacy of lost people, found by God, because you invested in life together?  If you think it isn't that simple, the reality is it has always been that simple.  Wherever the simple, straightforward love of God in Jesus Christ has been lived out in groups of people who decided to live life together in the power of the Holy Spirit large numbers of lost people have been found, and become part of the family. 

This week, we'll look at what it takes to live life together based on Acts 2:42-47, but know this up front--it will take putting God before anything or anyone, and putting people before stuff.  It will take "swimming upstream" against the current of American culture in the early 21st century.  It will be the hardest job we ever love!

Let's pray:  Heavenly Father, You have given us the model for living our lives together in ways that will make eternal differences.  Fill us with Your Holy Spirit so we will choose to live them that way, and thus make those eternal differences You call us to make.  This we pray in Jesus' name.  Amen.