Friday, May 29, 2009

the question remains

I think that you all should listen to this podcast of a sermon given by my pastor Scott Anderson on the passage in Acts 12: 1-18.
"One of the things that we’re constantly confronted with, when we read the book of Acts, is that the early Christians lived their lives with a very real sense of expectation - for God to be active, evident and involved in their everyday lives, and in and through their prayers. They expected to see God at work in their lives, and in the lives of others around them. And it always makes me think – Do I? Do we?

We know this is God’s world. That He made everything that is in it. That He is Lord over all of it. And that He has shown Himself to be a God who doesn’t just live off in the heavens, but who shows up in the lives of women and men, who enters into human history, who acts to bring about His kingdom and will in the lives of people just like us, and in the life of nations and empires. Yet, for all of that knowledge, the question still remains – Do we… Do you and I expect to see God at work in our lives? " --Scott

"Still shaking his head, amazed, he went to Mary's house, the Mary who was John Mark's mother.

The house was packed with praying friends. When he knocked on the door to the courtyard, a young woman named Rhoda came to see who it was. But when she recognized his voice—Peter's voice!—she was so excited and eager to tell everyone Peter was there that she forgot to open the door and left him standing in the street.

But they wouldn't believe her, dismissing her, dismissing her report. "You're crazy," they said. She stuck by her story, insisting. They still wouldn't believe her and said, "It must be his angel." All this time poor Peter was standing out in the street, knocking away.

Finally they opened up and saw him—and went wild! Peter put his hands up and calmed them down. He described how the Master had gotten him out of jail, then said, "Tell James and the brothers what's happened." He left them and went off to another place.

At daybreak the jail was in an uproar. "Where is Peter? What's happened to Peter?" --Acts 12

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live the questions now... R.M. Rilke