Just Listen

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October 29, 2012

"Just Listen"

Scripture Reading:
Acts 11:20-11 (HCSB) But there were some of them, Cypriot and Cyrenian men, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Hellenists, proclaiming the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord

Devotional Reading:

In his newest book, Deep and Wide, Andy Stanley asks a question that has been haunting me for some days now: Who is church for?  Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?  Seems like we should be able to answer it without even flinching.  But it is killing me…haunting me.  It is killing me because I know the right answer: church is for the lost and broken world around us…it is God’s one and only plan for reaching, saving and healing that world.  Church, when all the programs and budgets and theological debates are done, is for that world. The world that wants nothing to do with it.  So, when I read Dr. Luke’s account of the early church and its struggles to answer this same haunting question, “Who is church for?”, I am looking for answers for myself.  I am looking for how they got over some of these same biases and prejudices that I feel in my own heart.  I am looking for their way forward through that challenge, and I am hoping it will somehow show me the way forward as well.  After all, THEY were much more prejudiced than I…they had some very real racial issues at play, some very real doctrinal issues at play…I don’t have any issues nearly that severe…do I?  Imagine my disappointment, then, when I read that Peter simply stood up and told them the story of what he had seen and heard at Cornelius’ house, how he had seen the activity of the Holy Spirit in their lives, and how it all seemed to him to line up nicely with what God had been saying to him through his prayer life…and they listened and then said [paraphrasing], “Oh.  O.K., then.  We get it.  We’re good with that.”  What was their magical, mystical, secret and amazing way through the challenge?  They prayerfully listened to pastor Peter’s testimony, and they agreed and they moved forward.  Period.  That was all it took for them.  Aaaauuuggghhhhh!!!!!  haunted.  Listen to the shepherd God has put over you!  Really Simple right!

Keep the Son in your eyes,

Pastor Ben J Lahay

Galatians 2:20