Luke begins the Book of Acts with a bit of review
(v. 1-5). He refers to His former book
(the Gospel of Luke) and then discusses Christ’s post-resurrection appearances
when Jesus spoke to the apostles. Luke
emphasizes Christ’s command to wait for the Holy Spirit’s coming (v. 4-5). Jesus is promising that God will supply the
church with all the resources it needs for fulfilling its missionary mandate. In verses 6-11, we get a preview of the book
of Acts. Verse 8 clearly sets out what
the church is to be doing until Jesus returns.
Jesus tells His disciples of the resources, content and scope of their
primary task. The essential resource is
the Holy Spirit which will give them the supernatural ability to work miracles
and preach effectively. This task is for
the whole church! Jesus tells all
believers to be His witness which means to speak from personal knowledge of the
Lord. We see in the book of Acts that
they followed His command to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to
the ends of the earth. Immediately after
giving this command, Christ is taken up from the earth. The disciples are left standing in awe, looking
upwards, when two angels gentle rebuke them and promise that He will return in
the same way (v. 11). As the disciples
wait for the Holy Spirit, they gathered to pray together. Peter declares the
necessity of finding a replacement for Judas (v. 20) since Judas had committed
suicide (v. 18). Peter reminds the group
of the requirements of this apostolic replacement (v. 21-22). The replacement had to be someone who had
been with them from the time of Jesus baptism until His ascension. Two candidates were proposed (v. 23) and the
apostles pray to fill the position.
Notice how they left the decision up to God, just as the other disciples
were chosen by God, Matthias was chosen by God.
Prayer and
Journaling
1. Read over verse 8. The Holy Spirit empowers us
to serve God and be His witnesses. Think about the areas of your life where you
influence people. Some examples are family, work, school and church. In order
to be effective for God’s kingdom we need to ask for this empowering daily. All Christians have the Holy
Spirit inside of them; this is a promised gift that we receive when we are
saved. But this does not mean that every
believer has the same measure of the Holy Spirit working in their lives. Ask
the Holy Spirit to empower you to influence the people in these areas of your
life for Christ.
2. The disciples allowed God to choose Matthias to
replace Judas. This sets an example for all believers: we are to make decisions
under God’s guidance. Ask the Lord to show you a decision in your life that
needs to be made. Then, spend some time
listening in prayer, asking Him to show you the answer.
3. Prayer is vital if the Church is to fulfill
God’s mission. In Acts we see that the disciples were wholly dependent on
prayer. Pray for the Canadian Church. Pray that God would teach us humility and
show us that we need His guidance and empowering. Ask God to teach the Church
how effective prayer is. Pray for pastors and leaders to grow in their personal
prayer lives, that they might teach others how to pray.
