Good morning, brothers and sisters.
Our verse for today comes from Acts 2:44-45, “Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.”
Each of us probably has a button that can be pushed that makes us long for a simpler time. It might be seeing a child sitting in their parent’s car, waiting for the bus, that makes us harken back to when kids could safely wait at a bus stop together without a parent hanging around. Or maybe it’s the buses that make us long for times when kids could walk with the other kids from the neighborhood to their school a few blocks away. Maybe it’s your house full of stuff that causes you to remember with fondness your childhood, the one where you grew up with practically nothing but seemed to be happy and content to do without. Or it could be an old western movie that stirs up dreams of living out in the open with nothing but countryside and fresh air surrounding you. As powerful as these ideas might be, the one thing that they have in common is that they’re not all they are cracked up to be. Do you really want to live a day’s horse ride from the nearest store or doctor, and go to a 19th century dentist? Have you forgotten the frustration and complaining that came with growing up on hand-me-downs and not being able to go and do like others?
The point is that times of yore were filled with good and bad, regardless of the era, and today is no different. There is much to enjoy now, and much to wish away. So when we read about the community in which the early church was thriving, it can make us want something different than what we have. It can also make us scared. Countless believers would embrace their church being more like a huge family that loves and takes care of each other. But countless others would shudder at the thought of selling things they have to take care of others who are without, or having to depend on others to help them through a rough stretch. Who we are, individually and as a church, can always be better. But it’s the individual that makes up the church, so it’s the individual that must be changed by the Spirit. If you want things to be better or different, let it begin inside of you.
As we seek Him today, put the focus on the internal for God to use that on the external.
Have a gracious Monday.
#4 Rich Holt
Dad of Ripken, Koy, TrishaJean, Samantha, Kakie Holiday and Raleigh
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.
