Skip to main content

Celebration

“…praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Acts 2:47

Today would have been my grandmother’s 117th birthday. She was a very sweet lady. My one cousin had a hard time keeping her Grandma Smith and Grandma Jones straight so she called her Grandma Jones “Sweetie”, and the nickname stuck. I enjoyed celebrating her long life with her. She lived across the street from us and daily shared life with us. She died at the age of 97.

As the early church shared life together and saw the Lord do many marvelous miracles, it brought two important traits into their lives: praise and favor. Their hearts were filled with praise to the Lord for all He was doing among them. But the outcome of God’s working was also a sense of favor from others. God’s workings brought celebration on a regular basis.

What are you celebrating today? Happy Birthday Sweetie!!

Prayer Focus: Father, we celebrate You today. Thank You for those who are in the process of being saved. Thank You for Your generosity to us. Thank You for the ways You are working in our lives and the life of our community.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Not Every Prayer

“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.’” Luke 18:9-10 Prayers are not the same. Some are humble cries to the Lord; but some are self-righteous rants before God. The first declares our unworthiness in the presence of our King. The second tells God how good we are compared to those around us, as if God is blessed to have us on His side. When I used to provide coaching for churches, I would be in meetings that included prayer. Some of those times were corporate praying that was open to all. I can still remember one in which a person very awkwardly poured their heart out to the Lord while the next waxed eloquent with fine-sounding words. As I listened to the second person, I was not sure that God knew anything, especially how special the pray-er was. As in our passage today, I believe the first person went home justified by Go...

Loving My Neighbor

“…Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 19:19 Jesus taught us to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Also in the gospel of Matthew, He said this, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” It is interesting that Jesus says that this is the sum of what the Law and the Prophets have to say. This is saying that the Old Testament speaks of love for our neighbor and putting others before ourselves. This is not just a New Testament teaching. Galatians also says the same thing. “The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” There are Old Testament verses that speak to this, but much of the time it is implied. The Law teaches us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and after that to love our neighbor as ourself. That is a high calling. After our love for God, we are to love our neighbor. Sometimes this is easy and other times not so much. But, God doesn’t say to...

Religious Adjustments

“The Spirit Himself intercedes for us…” Romans 8:26 There have been those times when in grief or amidst difficult situations when I have simply sighed and groaned to our God with no audible words. It happened to me as I approached my grandfather’s casket with the intent of praying something special. In that moment, I simply knelt and nothing audible poured out. It has happened on other occasions as well when I could only sigh with tears. Has this ever happened to you? Paul, in his letter to the Romans mentions this aspect of prayer with the following, “And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.” (Romans 8:26-27) What is prayer anyway? Way too often we believe we need the proper word order or humble s...