Acts: Week 5, Day 2

Acts 9:31–43.

The church is at peace, with the Holy Spirit moving in great ways and the disciple live in the fear of the Lord.

Two examples of the strength and encouragement of the spirit to devoted believers are given:  the healing of Aeneas the paralytic and the raising of Tabitha in Dorcas.

3. a. Peace; strengthened and encouraged by H/S; grew in numbers; living in fear of the Lord

b. I can see the hand of God moving in so many ways in and around my life.  I can see him working in a recovery center in the urban core that teaches the only way to true recovery from addiction and the evils of this world is to turn it all over to God.  I can see him working in childrens’ hearts in our church and BSF.  I can see him using the devastation in Joplin to touch believers hearts all over and strengthen and encourage them through their work.  Seeing God work, to me, is peace.

c. I think we have to look at how evil tries to attack the church.  It does it most commonly, in my opinion, through wordly ways.  It uses debt to cause fear and worry and a burden.  It uses greed and desires for stature and power to corrupt or cause criticism.  But, while the church is comprised of a lot of broken parts (like me), when we form together and support each other then we form a powerful army for God.

4. The healings remind us of Christ’s infinite power and authority.

Conclusion:  In our modern world view, I think we are so quick to build walls in our lives.  “Well, I know Christ washes away my sin, but this is different, this is (name the ailment).  He can’t cure that.”  We pray that God will intervene and assist, but, are we bold?  Do we expect miracles.  Do we ask god to make a paralytic more comfortable or to cause him to walk?  We don’t have any issue recognizing Christ’s authority in spiritual matters, but physical healing, well, let’s be practical.

 Mat 9:5-6 reminds us that we have things upside down.  The more difficult task is to forgive our sins.  The power to heal our bodies with nothing but a word is only to remind us that he heals our soul through a much greater cost.