Sin has broken apart everything that was meant to be together, but through Christ all is being brought back into harmony. Our disintegration — our broken-to-pieces-hood — is being healed. In Christ, our hope is for eternal health and wholeness.
If Jesus truly was the Son of God, we would not expect that truth to be obvious to us if our “eyes” can only see things that this world considers to be important. May we appraise Him carefully — and appraise His inner character the most carefully.
In the biblical account, we are dual creatures who straddle the physical and spiritual worlds. We have a brain, but we also have a mind — a reasoning faculty that reaches far beyond what the brain (which is its servant) can do.
While there is a need for patience, we also need to be diligent. Our transformation will not take place automatically, by divine decree. We have to embrace the process actively and wholeheartedly, submitting to God’s training for as long it takes.
If faith without works is insufficient (James 2:14-26), so is baptism without conversion. If we do not make the decision to walk in “newness of life” (Romans 6:4), it is to be wondered whether we really did die with Christ when we were baptized.
All the good things in life require committing ourselves to them. Hesitancy, doubt, and tentativeness will cut the very heart out of our discipleship to Christ. Distrusting God, we will never get the answers to our questions. So we must TRUST God.
However “nice” my outward life may be, when I measure my heart (my thoughts, attitudes, and intentions) against Jesus’ teaching, I am ashamed. His teaching disturbs me greatly, if I have any self-honesty. But that is why I need to listen!
If the congregation we’ve been a part of is not faithful to Christ, we need to worship elsewhere. But even if we’re surrounded by others who are faithful to Christ, the more important question is still about our own responsibilities before the Lord.
We want the “way of God” (Acts 18:26). The path that leads to God — the one He has laid out — will often seem narrow and illogical to us (Matthew 7:13,14). But that doesn’t matter. It only matters whether it is, in fact, “the Way” (Acts 24:14).
The great emphasis in Acts 2 is on the content of the preaching. We would seriously fail in our appreciation of this text if we were so amazed by the signs and wonders that we didn’t pay attention to the message the signs were pointing to.
