Wednesday, March 3, 2010

God's Word Reaches A Continent!

Chapter 19:
On June 7th I will celebrate 20 years of ministering to students in Katy Texas! I am humbled and grateful for the privilege of helping Students Know Jesus & Make Him Known! Why would I stay in one place so long? There are many reasons: I feel called here, benefits of long-term ministry, good relationships with the community, etc… but most of all I still have a heart to see Katy reached for Jesus! Is that unrealistic? According to today’s passage it’s not! As a matter of fact, maybe it’s too small of a desire?!~!
Paul arrives in Ephesus and finds “disciples.” He didn’t assume they were believers so he asks them if they had received the Holy Spirit? They had not so he prays and God’s Holy Spirit comes on them! He then continues his practice of boldly preaching God’s Word and persuading people to believe – and as always, some believe, some do not. Then comes an incredible verse: “This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the Word of the Lord.” Wow – ALL of Asia heard! Katy is a lot smaller than Asia!
GOD’S WORD is powerful (Rom 1:16, Heb 4:12-13) and can penetrate an entire people! You don’t want to play around with it though and that’s what we see with the seven sons of Sceva! Many Ephesian Jews were into exorcism and the occult (magic) and they thought they’d try out using the name of Jesus as well. Ha – it’s results in a demon beating the crap out of them!!! Nowhere in scripture does it say believers have the power to cast out demons or “bind” them and nowhere in scripture are we commanded to do so. The name of Jesus is not meant to be a magical charm to be used by whoever wants to use it and so the demons questioned their authority and took them out! The result? “The Word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.”
Next we see that a riot breaks out against believers in Jesus because of their witness. Which should be of no surprise!
SO WHAT?
*What are you passionate about? We get pumped for sports events, or excited about new movies coming out, or want the latest technology coming out – the list goes on. But are you passionate about lost people? The hell they’re going thru and the hell they’re going to without Jesus? This is not meant to be guilt trip theology, but a chance for all of us to ask God to break our hearts for the things that break His!
*Who are you praying for to come to know Jesus? Let’s ask God for KATY TEXAS - or whatever city you’re in! He’s big enough to reach them with His Word! And then get ready, because His means of doing that is you and I!!!!!!

2 comments:

  1. BTW, 50,000 drachmas is about 3 lifetimes worth of wages.

    (Assuming 1 drachma - 1 days wage & 45 years = average lifetime of work)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah - that's a LOT of moolah... I think the idea is they literally gave their lives to the Lord in every sense!

    ReplyDelete