As someone who has served as a pastor, I admit that sometimes when I read the first several chapters of Acts, I am tempted to either envy or despair. The description of the early church is so glowing that it is easy to think, “Why isn’t my church like that? What am I doing wrong? Why isn’t God blessing us like that?”
Acts describes a church freshly filled with the Holy Spirit, a church that is growing in number daily, a church willing to sacrifice so that its members needs are met, a church so spiritually vital that its members are willing to lay down their lives for Jesus.
As I read this description recently this thought struck me: “This church is my church?” Actually, it is Jesus’ church, and the churches that I have pastored are also his. Really, Jesus only has one church, and the blessings that he pours out on his people in certain times and places are blessings that belong to all of us his people in all times and in all places.
Rather than read these glowing descriptions with envy or despair, I should read them and thank God for what he has given me. I should thank him for allowing me to experience such tremendous blessing as I read about his mighty works in Scripture.
When Jesus died and rose again, he purchased for himself one people, HIS people. When we consider that any blessing he gives to his people in any specific time or place is really OUR blessing, we will soon begin to see just how much he has blessed us down through the years.
Not only that, it is pleasing to the Lord when we come to him and say, “Lord Jesus, please bless us again. You blessed us in Acts and we need that blessing again. We wait upon you for a fresh outpouring of your Spirit and your power upon us.” Isn’t that what the church in Acts did? In chapter 4, Peter and John were brought before the Jewish rulers and threatened, and yet when they returned to the church and began to pray, God re-filled them with His Spirit and they “continued to speak the word of God with boldness.” (Acts 4:31)
We need to see the difficult times in our lives and ministries as nothing more than God’s pauses between his blessings.