LifeLink Devotions (Click link for audio blog) 

Monday, November 8, 2021

For the last two weeks we have been studying the first and second chapters of Acts to discover the fundamentals of a REAL church. It is in the second chapter of Acts that the REAL church gets its start when the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit falls upon the believers in Christ on the day of Pentecost. When Peter stands up to preach with the power of the Holy Spirit, he becomes the first Gospel evangelist, and his sermon is very simple. It presented to the people the truth that Jesus is both Lord and Messiah based on His death and resurrection.

In the days ahead we are going to look at some of the various New Testament passages on the cross, and discover some wonderful truths about God’s indescribable gift of salvation to us. For today, I want to focus on one thing from Peter’s sermon.

Acts 2:22-24  Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. 

Peter tells the people that they know who Jesus is because God accredited Him to them by the miracles, wonders, and signs God performed through Him. Jesus was affirmed as the Son of God by the supernatural work of God in His life, and these unsaved people to whom Peter was preaching knew it. They had not yet placed their faith in Him, but in their heads they knew who Jesus was.

I find that to be all too true in our world today – people who have head knowledge of the truth, but it has not yet penetrated their heart. In their minds they know the truth. They have heard about Jesus, and have seen His work in the lives of His followers, but they deny any need to surrender their lives to Him. 

However, can it be said today that people who observe our lives have a knowledge of Jesus because of what they see?They may have heard about Jesus, but have they really seen the resurrection power of Jesus at work in the lives of His followers?

What a challenge this is to us. Is God continuing to accredit the reality of Jesus to a lost world through His powerful work in us as believers? Oh, we may not all be gifted to do miracles and signs and wonders, but we are all gifted with the Holy Spirit who produces the character of Christ in our lives so that the fruit of the Spirit is visible. When love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control rule our lives, God is affirming the reality of Jesus Christ to a world that does not know Him.

In Ephesians 1, verses 18-20, Paul the Apostle says, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.”

The same power that God exerted when He raised Jesus from the dead is the power that He exerts in us when He raises us from spiritual death to new life in Christ. You see, God is still accrediting Christ to the world through the miracle of a transformed life. How are we doing at showing it to them?

Pastor John