Point Group Study- Book of Acts, Ch 7-8

Posted on 3/16/2010 by Jose | 0 comments

On our Point Group study we went from Chapter 4 to 7-8. Download a complete set of the notes of our study here.



Jesus Welcoming Standing
In many situations in life, followers of Christ will go through hard situations. We may not be delivered from them but, instead, we may be empowered to go through it.

It is significant that Luke, through the Holy Spirit inspiration, writing of these events which had occurred 30 years before, chose to emphasize by pointing out, twice, that Jesus was standing. In most instances in the Bible that shows the Lord standing he is shown as ready for battle. Stephen went immediately into the presence of God. (Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.) No waiting station.

Until the murder of Stephen the gospel had not been preached outside Jerusalem. God was beginning to unveil his plans of salvation, not just for Jews, but for Samaritans and gentiles as well. God's original orders for the disciples had not changed: they were to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, (Acts 1:8.) Perhaps with all the growing followers the disciples had become comfortable for a while, but the Lord had His plans. We have the same orders. Often God may allow some uncomfortable situation into our lives, even painful, in order to moves us toward His will for our lives. After all, He knows the plans he has for us, we don't, (Jer. 29:11.)

Acts 1 - 8 was God's transitional plan for the young church. There is a shift here in the book of Acts with the appearance of a new character. From this point he will be shown prominently throughout this book and right through the pages of Christian history. This new character is Saul of Tarsus, who was to become the Apostle Paul by a special commission form the Lord himself.

The Nature of God's will: Circumstantial & Direct
On chapter 8 we see some of the ways God's will work in our lives: sometimes he uses circumstances and sometimes He directs us explicitly. He is sovereign and supreme and he uses and controls both.

Circumstances:
The Lord has said that they were going to be witnesses in their neighborhoods, their regions and globally, (Acts 1:8.) The circumstances here were the persecution. As a result of the persecution hey shared about Christ, "wherever they went."No matter what our circumstances in life, we are to be witnesses.

Direct & explicit:
We will see this on Acts 8:26-30 in which God, through the Holy Spirit, tells Philip to go. There was no way to mistake the voice of God and what his command to Philip was. Centuries before Jonah had received a similar command, (Jonah 1:1-3) but Jonah chose instead to openly disobey God's order. God speaks to all of us in many ways, through the Holy Spirit that indwells us. When we are not listening carefully we may see His presence around us only on our spiritual periphery and out of focus. We may see His work only after it has passed in front of our spiritual focus field. God speaks to us directly too and we can hear Him if we don’t harden our hearts, (Psalm 95:6-8.) He wants for us to hear Him, (John 5:25.)

Serving Neighbors in Our Judea

Posted on 3/15/2010 by Jose | 0 comments

A study from Feeding America, the nation's largest food bank operator, shows that the number of Americans in need of food aid has jumped 46 percent in three years. There has been a 50 percent jump in the number of children needing food assistance, and a 64 percent increase in hunger in senior citizens' homes. The study shows that a growing number of people have to make difficult choices about what to spend their diminishing dollars on, with the rising cost of health care a major contributing factor to hunger. More than 46 percent of people helped by Feeding America report having to choose between paying for utilities or heating fuel and food; 39 percent said they had to choose between paying for rent or a mortgage and food; 34 percent report having to choose between paying for medical bills and food.


Governor Bob McDonnell said: "Too often, hunger is an issue we believe exists only in “other” places. But any official at one of the many Food Banks in Virginia will tell you hunger can be found “everywhere.” There is not a zip code in this Commonwealth where someone doesn’t need help to get a full, balanced meal."


A recent study by the Food Security Institute, Center on Hunger and Poverty found that 594,000 people in Virginia are considered “food insecure.” Another 121,000 Virginians are considered “food insecure with hunger.”


It is a daunting task which can intimidate us to the point of paralysis. But, in eliminating hunger in America, we can start with small steps and make an all out effort to reduce it first in our neighborhoods. In the case of Point Harbor Community Church, we can start by working to get rid of hunger within zip code 23321 and then 23701, 23702, 23704…. 

We started our small steps during March's Second Saturday. 62 people gathered at Point Harbor to sort out food and put together grocery boxes for families in Chesapeake, Norfolk and Virginia Beach. After working for 90 minutes in the foyer of the church filling boxes with groceries, the gathered group departed to make 28 deliveries for 44 families in need. 

Point Group Study - Book of Acts, Chapter 4

Posted on 3/09/2010 by Jose | 0 comments

On our Point Group study we looked into Chapter 4, specifically, persecution.

Why Persecution?
We grow through trials and persecution, (James 1:1-3.) The enemy knows that the persecution of Christ followers, by governments or established powers, strengthens the church. (i.e.: more bibles are distributed throughout certain countries during times of persecution than other times.) The enemy, therefore, has shifted strategy today; instead of persecution he has instigated in us a complacence, a sense of security, satisfaction and entitlement. He has helped us to trivialize our relationship with God and have it reduce it to how much comfort we have. We do not expect anything short of that because "we deserve to be comfortable and undisturbed."

Satan  is using with us the same three temptation he used with Jesus, (Mat. 4:1-10):
  1. "Tell these stones to become bread."  (You are hungry; you have needs, your needs deserve to be met.)
  2. "If you are the Son of God."  (Are you sure that God really love me? Maybe He really doesn't' so, what does it so matter?)
  3.  "All this I will give you, if you bow down" (He who has the most stuff wins, you want to be a winner, don't you?)

What Persecution is not
Losing a job are having bad health or having a relationship to goes sour.
 
I grew up in country were people, during holy week, parade while hitting themselves with leather lashes, pebbles and dull nails attached to the end of the strands. They do this in order to "suffer for Christ." That is an aberration and an evil distortion.

What Persecution is
Getting a negative reaction from the world, which affects us physically or emotionally, due to our witness for Jesus, (Mat 5:11-13) It is suffering for Christ due to our repeated boldness in raising His name high, (2 Thessalonians 1:3-5). We are persecuted because our yearning to share about Jesus is stronger than our desire for survival, and thus we incur the ridicule, humiliation, ostracizing and even jail or death. We are persecuted because of our compelling desire to glorify God, not because we want to bring glory to ourselves by being reckless.

In Philippians 3:10, Paul said "…I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death."  What he is saying is that his desire to know Christ and to serve Him, intimately, not just intellectually, is so strong, that he is willing to share in the suffering he went through, even to death.  It isn’t because he just wants to suffer but because, as he puts it, "… our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control; will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."

I have added a link here to download the full set of notes that include more scripture references and information on what we covered of Acts 4.

Point Group Study - Book of Acts, Chapter 3

Posted on 3/01/2010 by Jose | 0 comments

We continued our study of the Book of Acts this week in our Point Group. We looked at Chapter 3 and what happens when we get the "spiritual triple play": 1. We are baptized into the body of Christ, 2. We are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and 3. We are filled and empowered to do His work. We also talked about miracles.

What do you do when you experience the "spiritual triple play", and where do you start?
You start where you are. Peter and John started in Jerusalem, and a place they were familiar with, the temple (Acts 2:1). Just because they were now spiritually enlightened followers of Christ was no reason to stop going to the places they frequented before. And they were ready and burning with excitement. This is a common experience of every new believer when they experience the "spiritual triple play." They have fervor and the passion of a new believer. They want to share what has happened to them with everybody, starting with those closest around them.

What do we do when confronted with a challenge in our lives?
In Chapter 3 they are confronted with a challenge: a 40 year old man who had been crippled all his life. They had 3 choices of actions, the same we have today: ignore the problem, solve it temporarily on our own or solve it permanently in Jesus' name. To solve a need, or to deal with a challenge, permanently in Jesus' name we need spiritual power from Christ, through the Holy Spirit in us, (Luke 21:15),  or knowledge and depth of insight, (Philippians 1:9)

Does God perform miracles today?
God is sovereign and can do whatever He wishes, but miracles had a specific purpose then.  Miracles then were to manifest Jesus' glory, (John 2:11); to testify of Jesus' origin, (John 5:36); to prove God's revelation through the written Word, (John 20:30-31). In addition, God wanted us to know who Jesus was by performing miracles, (Acts 2:22). Since all revelation about Jesus is completed and found in the Bible, the reason for that type of miracles does not exist anymore, (Rev. 22:18). We are to walk by faith, and not by sight, (2 Cor. 5:7)

I have added a link here to download the full set of notes that include more scripture references and information on what we covered of Acts 3.

Download notes for Point Group Study Acts 3

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