A couple of days ago during my morning time with Yahweh, I
read from Acts. In chapter 4, I read the following:
v. 33b –
And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them All
34 – that there were
no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who
owned land or houses sold them brought
the money from the sales
35 – and put
it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
I found this interesting. The writer, presumably Luke,
starts by writing that God’s power was evident among the community of Christ
followers. When I think of God’s power I think of healing and deliverance and
other acts of power. But, he described the activities of the people as evidence
of God’s powerful actions. It seems as though God’s grace and power were
revealed through the love and generosity of the people. Lives were changed,
i.e., transformed, in such a way that it was visible through these gestures of
love a care.
As I reflected on God’s work as we read in the entire Bible,
I see most of it deals with this kind of caring for one another. We spend so
much time in so-called ‘deep’ theology that the simple acts of devotion go by
and are missed. Our church leaders spend so much time trying to build fences to
keep the sheep penned up that they give us neither time nor opportunity to
simply live and love. But, these couple of verses in Acts shows that the
leaders were distributors of God’s grace. Grace that enables people, all
people, to detach from the cares and worries and false security offered by this
world’s systems. Grace that causes people to develop empathy for others. Grace
that is reflected back to the Giver through acts of service and kindness.
Nothing deep. No creeds. No doctrine. No magic beams. Just
simple love. Jesus did leave that to us as a command. He never said to go and
believe orthodoxy. He said, ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’
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