My life, my dominion

Continuing from the previous post.

Pentecost was the answer to prayer and the answer was a granting of power. The reversement of the 'curse' that God placed on the people at Babel. Through the holy spirit, God empowered the church to break the barriers of language and once again the world could be brought together again. However, pentecost wasn't the end of weakness despite the granting of power.

For after pentecost, there was even greater persecution, in fact, the church would see another 300 more years of some of the fiercest persecution it would ever see. In Acts chp 12, we see the matrydom of James ( the first apostle to be matryed) and then peter gets thrown in Jail. The is the beginning of persecution of the church in jereusalem under herod. What did the church do?
They prayed. They met in weakness and prayed recognising their sense of need. The focus of their prayer? The odds they were facing and how weak they were and the need of peter.

From there we see that in weakness we will come to see the need for God's power. At pentecost, there was the need to be empowered to speak to the multitudes of believers who spoke different languages. Then came peter's and john's imprisonment and the impending persecution. How different is the power? Well in the case of peter, from him telling the crippled to ' Get Up!' it was the angel of God telling him to 'Get Up' out of the shackles. And when Peter realised the true freedom from jail when he was lead out of the dungeon by the angle., peter was FREE!

Lastly, we will be surprised by God's answer to our prayers.
The doctrine of matthew 7:7 has somewhat clouded the greatness of God's answer to our prayers. we have become expectant of what to receive from God and as such we treat prayer lightly and take it for granted. It's almost a pray-hard-and-long and you shall receive rather than it is by God's grace that we recieve.
But look at the reaction of the 1st church. When peter turned up at the door, they 1st left him at the door, called the girl silly, said it was his angel before being totally surprised to hear his voice and see him at the door. acts 12 v-13-15
They were not expecting anything to the point they were alsmot unbelieving that God would answer their prayers. The leson? Prayer is Powerful and perfect even if our prayer is imperfect. Acts 12 v17-19. Not by their hand but God's was all things done.
Myself, last night i had such a surprisingly quick answer to my prayers. HAve been banging away at my econs notes for the past 3 nights to no avail. i finally bowed, said the lords prayer and told God that i'm just totally lost and really needed him to just open my mind. 10 seconds later, 6 hours of work was finally revealed to me. marvellous and surprising isn't it?

Next up, the pentecostal church and repentence.

phew.

Labels: Sermons