Showing posts with label Book of Acts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book of Acts. Show all posts

Point Group Study- Book of Acts, Ch 14-15

Posted on 4/20/2010 by Jose | 0 comments

Paul and Barnabas exhibit in Acts 14 another mark of spiritual leadership: they act boldly regarding God's business when it was not comfortable to do so. God always can use men and women who are willing to be bold for Him. Throughout the Bible we are admonished to be bold or courageous, (Det. 31:6; Joshua. 1:9; 1 Chronicles 28:20; Mat 14:27.)

To be bold today may mean to speak clearly what the message of the Gospel is, without compromising it. Without been frightened by the pressure to be political correct, standing firm on what the Bible says to be true, without equivocation.

For example: we must be bold and clearly articulate the biggest three non-negotiable doctrines in the Bible:

1) The Deity of Christ
2) Salvation by Grace
3) The Resurrection of Christ.

The Bible clearly states that believing in these three doctrines is essential. Read more about it here.

Point Group Study- Book of Acts, Ch 9-11

Posted on 4/08/2010 by Jose | 0 comments

On our Point Group study we survey Acts 9-11. Download the notes of our study here. 

We quickly survey Acts 10 to 11. We find out that God is looking for spiritual leaders: men and women who lead by example in their own homes and show a clear commitment and service to God. Leading by example is not just teaching, but also training, (Prov. 22:6). Training means showing someone how to do something, not just theoretically, but practically. We also see that persecution is having the results that God intended: to expand His kingdom. Persecution, trials and difficulties are given to us, not to defeat us, but to define us

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.)

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

Point Group Study - Acts 2

Posted on 2/19/2010 by Jose | 1 comments


This Wednesday we continued our study of Acts by looking at the second chapter, specifically the first 13 verses.  We asked ourselves and then answered a few questions in relation to the Holy Spirit.

Who Has it and Who Doesn’t?
These provocative questions were sparked by comments within our group during our second meeting, when we looked at Acts 1.The straightforward answer to these questions is that all believers (Christ followers) have the Holy Spirit and nobody else does. It is the gift of the Father to all who believe in the Son.  We looked in Romans (8:9) and John (14:17) to verify that answer.

What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit?
The baptism of the Holy Spirit consists of two parts: first, becoming a part of the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-13, Eph. 5:23) and second, receiving or being indwelled by the Holy Spirit (John 14:16). We discussed how once you are baptized by the Holy Spirit you are never alone and that it is never “undone.”

Another note from the verses in Acts 2 is that while speaking in tongues happened after the baptism of the Holy Spirit, it wasn’t a result of the Baptism. It was a result of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Which brings us to the third question of the night.

What is the filling of the Holy Spirit?
Filling of the Holy Spirit is a temporary thing that requires constant refilling (Rom. 6:3-4, Eph. 5:18). The filling of the Holy Spirit is always followed by external manifestation (Acts 1:4). This is a marked difference from being baptized by the Holy Spirit. That happens once, at salvation, but being filled is something that can happen many times. We see many instances in the Bible of people being “filled” – Acts 6:5 where Stephen was filled with faith and the Holy Spirit, in Luke 1:45 Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and we see in Luke 1:67 that Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. These are just three examples of many found throughout scripture.

To be filled with the Holy Spirit you must giving total control of your life to the Holy Spirit. This is done through emptying ourselves (asking God to help us empty ourselves) and allowing Him to fill us with the Holy Spirit.

These were the main topics of discussion during our time on Wednesday. I have added a link here to download the full set of notes that include more scripture references and information on the other sections of Acts 2. 

Download notes.


40 Amazing Days

Posted on 2/08/2010 by Jose | 0 comments

It was the spring of the year 30 AD and a cluster of Jews, men and women, were huddled in a home in Jerusalem. Everyone in the small gathering was nervous, jumpy and some were scared stiff. They were confused and at a loss to explain what had happened. Their leader, known to them as Jesus, accused of rabble-rousing and treason, had been executed by the Romans. Fearing retribution, they were all now worried about what would happen to them. All of a sudden, Mary Magdalene and other women, bursted into their gathering and startled all of them. Tripping over her own words, they heard her say something about the body disappearing, resurrection and conversation with angels.

This was the start of the most amazing 40 days in human history. During the next 40 days, the resurrected Christ, appeared to many of his disciples, and specially to the eleven. Throughout that time he went fishing and ate with them, comforted them and assured them that he was coming back for them. He explained to them the scripture and encouraged them.  In the mean time, they were to get on with their mission: the transformation of this world into the Kingdom of God. And for this revolutionary task, he was sending to them a special weapon: the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit would not only be with them, but it would dwell inside them. Together they were to become a community, called the church.

The Book of Acts is about this astonishing 40 days and about the next 30 years after this even, 3 decades which were to be a vital period for the infant church and its given mission. For the next 13 weeks a group of us will be looking at this book. We will, with the guidance of the Spirit of God, see what this book says, learn what it says and then apply its teaching to our own lives. It should be an exacting journey! We will post here our weekly findings.

The Book of Acts: A Point Group Study

Posted on 1/11/2010 by Jose | 0 comments

We are about to start a journey into the Book of Acts. These will be one of the many Point Groups that will start gathering weekly at the church and member's homes. Ours will be a survey of the Acts of the Apostles. Our focus will be to discover the role of the church for missions. We will follow here our weekly discussions and practical applications examined within our group.

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