Sharing

Meditate: Acts 2:44

Look what happens in genuine, Spirit-infused togetherness. They shared.

Now this isn’t one of those “Everything I needed to know, I learned in kindergarten” kind of platitudes or some cheesy kind of convenience store greeting card sentiment. One translation says it this way: “everything they had was for the use of all.”

This is about family. Real, God-inspired family. Not to be confused with sappy “brotherhood of man” thinking.

Back in the school chorus they had us sing, “Let There Be Peace On Earth.” The song includes the lines, “With God as our Father,/brothers all are we./Let me walk with my brother/in perfect harmony…” Think of young male voices cracking under the strain and it’ll all come back to you. (And, of course, once it’s in your head you’ll think of me with thanks for the next several hours…)

That’s all fine right up to the point where you realize “perfect harmony” can only come between people who are being led by the Spirit as they follow Jesus in God’s ways.

And I think that’s why we have so much trouble seeing how today’s Church could ever look like this. We’re looking for some kind of global thing that’d be too big for us to comprehend even if it did exist.

But what if we looked at our congregation, our local Body of Christ, as a household? A household headed by God the Father? A household following the Son, Jesus, and permeated by the presence of the Spirit? What effect would that have?

What if we decided we were going to absorb the shocks together and celebrate the joys together and cry and laugh and dance and sing?

All together.

Like a family.

God’s family.

• Is God’s family my family?

Pray:
Praise: You are the Everlasting Father, giving good gifts to Your children.
Confess: I have not looked to You as Father. I have tried to find my own way apart from You.
Thank: You have given Your family that none of us should ever be alone. You have set Your table that we may be fed. You have given “springs of living water” that we would never thirst. I hear You calling me.
Ask: Adopt me into Your family, bring me home.

Digging Deeper: II Corinthians 8:1-15

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