Problems of Family Living
When Others think Your Faith is Weird.
“The apostles were performing many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers were meeting regularly at the Temple . . . . . . But no one else dared to join them, even though all the people had high regard for them.
14 Yet more and more people believed and were brought to the Lord—crowds of both men and women. 15 As a result of the apostles’ work, sick people were brought out into the streets on beds and mats so that Peter’s shadow might fall across some of them as he went by. 16 Crowds came from the villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those possessed by evil spirits, and they were all healed." Acts 5:12-16
Pastor's Blog
Do your neighbors ever wonder why you spend so much time at church? Do they fear joining you because they don’t want to “go overboard” like you have?
It’s even worse when they hear about really weird things happening which they associate with the “televangelist faith healer frauds”. Peter’s shadow healed people!!!! How weird is that, not to mention simply not believable.
Yet this New Community didn’t seem to think there was anything odd about all these healings. Luke says quite matter of factly in vs. 16, “they were all healed”. These believers seemed to think that God was free and able to do whatever He wanted. Nor were they burdened by modern democratic thinking which asks and demands, “if God does it for one, why not for all”. Nor does God’s power appear to be connected to the devotion or the holiness of those involved. They simply believed and God did even more than they expected.
It’s okay to be “weird” like the early Christians were weird, it that means believing that God is free to do what God wants. Just don’t act weird. Be yourself (if you’re a weird person by birth that’s okay, you’re stuck with that) , be humble, be a servant to your neighbors, ask God to unleash his power for them too just don’t’ pray out loud in weird ways on their doorstep).
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