The disciples come together praying. God comes and blows them away.
Turns them inside out and fills them with life.
The Pentecost story reverses what happened at Babel.
When the festival was over, they went back to their places of origin and took the God of Unity to others.
Paul and Silas are in jail for doing a good deed, an earthquake strikes!
The Jailer – a gentile pagan, running a Roman Jail House and who arranges for floggings, is terrified.
The fearful Jailer, recognizes he needs to find a way out of the mess, and sees what Paul and Silas have as an answer.
He yields to putting his whole trust in Jesus and his whole life turns around.
Jesus said, “Do you want to be made well?” Of course he did after being by the pool for 38 years!
When the time came he simply did as Jesus asked him … and was made well and was so happy.
The trouble was – it was healing on the Sabbath! The Jewish leaders were not happy!
Do we, in a moment of another’s moment of grace and joy, sometimes react negatively, like those leaders?
The Pakistani lady, Jamila, talked of in this message, did not focus on our differences.
We have a choice, to hold onto our assumptions, or to embrace new and deeper relationships.
Peter’s vision calls us to step beyond our boundaries and brace new relationships.
God’s grace has no boundaries.
Peter prays over Tabitha and she is given new life and raised up.
Resurrection is a call to rise, get up, stand up tall, and come out.
Resurrection is to be called from all that inhibits us, being raised to new heights.
Called to embrace ‘our story’, so we can be raised to a greater and more profound reality.
Following the resurrection the disciples were ‘shell-shocked’ and wondered what they might now do with their lives.
Fishing was something they knew. Jesus re-met them there and asked if they loved Him more than life as fisherman?
Jesus gave Peter a mission. Jesus keeps coming back to us and asks us to prove our love by serving Him.
William Carey, the first English missionary in India, had a terrible experience.
He lost all the translation work he had done over 20 years in a fire. He found that following God can be costly, but the flame of the Holy Spirit was lit in many peoples lives – grace abounded.
He, like the disciples, discovered no situation can hinder the spread of the gospel.
Many voices can be heard in our world – What is true? What is false? What do we disregard?
Is it reasonable to believe something we did not get to experience?
The 2 people traveling to Emmaus may have the answer… on that road, the stranger with them, shared the scriptures which were enough to believe that what they had heard was true – Jesus
died and rose again – their hearts were set on fire!
Misunderstandings happen for a variety of reasons. The Pharisees misunderstood.
Jesus was misunderstood but He did not hold back from demonstrating his love for the world.
It was not the entry into Jerusalem; it was the cross that marked Jesus’ destination.
God’s kingdom would arrive through the sacrifice on a cross, not a conquering king.
What Mary did was challenging for both Martha and Judas.
For Mary, devotion was exemplary to service and at this particular time she was performing an act of welcoming no matter the cost.
There are times when we need to celebrate the quiet and beautiful, abundant and meditative, superfluous and the pretty as followers of Jesus.
