5:40 And they agreed
with him, and when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they
commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41
So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were
counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. 42 And daily in the temple, and in
every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.
The other day I saw a picture of men being tortured and
killed and it said something like "The disciples made up the story of His
resurrection to take advantage of all the perks."
It isn't that I envy them or want to see those days and
events repeated. What takes my breath away is not what they had to go through
but their attitude in it. Lots of people even to this day get beaten and
tortured for political reasons and religious reasons. That is nothing new. It
may be fairly foreign to our North American culture but in some places it is
fairly commonplace.

Somewhere along the way, and I'm not sure where, Christianity
became a private matter. When I was beginning my ministry as a pastor in Cape
Breton I joined the local ministerial. The leaders of the 4 largest churches in
town belonged to it and then there was me. I could tell lots of stories about
that but the only one I'm going to tell today was that a proposal was made to
ban any church in town from sharing their beliefs publicly. They would not be
able to take literature from house to house, rent a public building to hold
meetings or do anything to share their faith beyond their own walls. Thankfully
it never amounted to anything but this proposal came from a pastor, a preacher,
a man who should be walking in the footsteps of Peter, James, and John.
That proposal sounded more like what the council came up
with. It sounds like the idea of someone who is trying to protect their turf.
I envy the disciples. They came to the profound realization
that nothing but Jesus matters. Self-preservation was not even on their radar
any more. Building a religion was not their goal. Being popular was not their
goal. Making money was not their goal. None of those things were even on the
list. They had one singular focus. Jesus must be revealed to everyone and
anyone who will listen. If it meant inconvenience or suffering or even death it
didn't concern them in the least. We can tell by their prayer life that the
only concern they had for themselves is that they weren't being bold enough.
Radical.
Extreme.
Typically those are words we think of as negative but not in
this case. The people were drawn to them just as they had been drawn to Jesus.
Are people drawn to Christianity today? Are we attracting people simply because
of who and what we are?
If we aren't there can be only one explanation. We are not
like Him.
My prayer is that God will do whatever it takes to change
that. It's time for His people to become His people and reignite the fire that
turned Jerusalem upside down in Acts 5. The world needs Him and we can't share
Him unless we have Him bursting from every pore in our bodies.
Pray.
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