Quick Note – Acts 9:31 – Multiply

Acts 9:31 – So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up.  And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.

I don’t have any statistics or research to prove my gut feeling, but it seems to me that the Christian church in general has been declining.  There seem to be fewer and fewer people becoming Christians and more and more people leaving the faith.  Maybe it is a problem in America and not in other parts of the world, but it is a sad commentary on the state of the church today.  Based on what I have noticed, many people in church today seem to believe that the solution is to change our political leaders.  It seems to me that many Christians are more concerned about who is winning the elections than about those who are lost. 

I’m not writing this as a scathing attack on the church.  No way!  I am a Christian, and I am part of the church.  But I just feel like we have been putting our faith, our trust, our hope in the wrong things.  Instead, we must bring our eyes back to God because that is where true growth can be found. 

Our passage today talks about the state of the early church after Saul (who was a persecutor of Christians who later became Paul) became a Christian.  There was a short period of peace after a hard time of tribulation.  But even in these times of peace, the church multiplied.  We are told in vs. 31, that the church multiplied because of two things – they were walking in the fear of the Lord and finding comfort in the Holy Spirit.  The early church didn’t grow because of Peter or Paul or any of the apostles.  It grew because they feared God and found encouragement in the Holy Spirit. 

These are the two things that we need to return to if we want the Christian church to multiply again.  It is necessary if we want to see the church grow instead of decline.  It is what is required if we want to see believers grow into disciples and disciples into leaders.  We must fear God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths.  We must respect and obey Him as our Lord, knowing that He is worthy of all our praise.  Rather than conforming to this world and ignoring our duty to God, we must stand apart as a light and follow our God.  Let us once again fear the Lord and treat Him as both our King and our God. 

Second, we must find encouragement/comfort in the Holy Spirit.  When we stand as a light, when we live differently, we are guaranteed to be persecuted.  This happened with the early church and will also happens with us if we do the same.  However, let us not grow weary in doing good, but trust our God to bring us comfort and strength.  He sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts to give us peace and encouragement.  So don’t let your hearts be troubled, trust Him to watch over you and continue to persevere in doing good.  John 15:5 says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”  As branches, we must keep ourselves attached to the Vine, Jesus Christ, if we ever plan to bear good fruit that will bring honor and glory to God.  We must not shift our focus to the things of this world, to political leaders, or even to creating good laws and regulations.  These things will not solve the problem of a dying church.  Rather, it is by keeping our eyes on Jesus Christ, fearing Him, and finding comfort in His arms that we will multiply once again.  It is in Christ that we will find a new awakening. 

Quick Note – Judges 16:15-22 – God, the Source of Strength

Judges 16:15-22 – 15 And she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me where your great strength lies.” 16 And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death. 17 And he told her all his heart, and said to her, “A razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man.”18 When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up again, for he has told me all his heart.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. 19 She made him sleep on her knees. And she called a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. 20 And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him. 21 And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. And he ground at the mill in the prison. 22 But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

Most of us know the story of Samson, the super strong judge appointed by God to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.  Samson was born as a Nazarite, so he was supposed to keep three major rules – 1) Not to drink or eat of the vine (grapes), 2) Not to be unclean by going near the dead, and 3) Not to shave his head.  Samson though had a tendency to break the rules of God.  At one point, he killed a lion and after some time, found honey in its carcass and ate of it, breaking the rule about going near the dead.  Although it doesn’t say in the Bible, whether he drank wine or ate grapes, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.  And in our passage today, we find that his hair was eventually cut by none other than his lover Delilah.  But today, I don’t want to spend time harping on how bad Samson was or how he made so many mistakes in his life, because who am I to cast the first stone, being that I sin against God often as well?  What I want us to focus on is where Samson found his strength. 

Many people think that the strength of Samson came from his hair, and when his hair was cut his strength was cut off, but that was not the source of Samson’s strength.  Many people think that if it wasn’t his hair, it must have been from his Nazarite vow, and because he had broken it by cutting his hair and interacting with things that were unclean, then that was why he lost his strength, but that was not the source of his strength either.  Samson knew exactly where his strength came from and we find it here in vs. 17 and then in vs. 20.  Unlike the times before, when Samson mocked Delilah and told her that if he were tied with new ropes or new bowstrings or his hair was wrapped into the web of a spinning loom, he would become weak, when Samson told Delilah this final time that if his hair was cut, he would become weak, he added a phrase.  He said that his strength would leave him.  And in vs. 20, we find out what, or better yet who, left him – the Lord.  Samson’s strength ultimately came from the Lord.  God was the source of his strength.  And because of his sin, because of his breaking his vows, because of his pride, God left Samson, and he became weak and was captured by the Philistines. 

We as Christians must remember that the source of our strength is not our knowledge of the Word of God.  Our source of strength is not the skills we’ve developed in the ministry.  Our source of strength isn’t our actions, our friends, our pastors and teachers.  Our source of strength is none of these things.  Our source of strength ultimately is God.  This means that if we want to be successful spiritually, then we must make sure that our relationship with Him is right and uninterrupted all the time.  Samson allowed lust and sin to break his relationship with God, and we must be wary not to allow any type of sin to do that to us.  We must be careful to keep our hearts pure and our relationship with him clear, so that we can always be in communion and communication with Him.  Let us make sure that we are always connected to our strength – our God. 

Restoring to Establishing

1 Peter 5:10 – “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”

One of the hardest things to deal with in life is suffering.  Nobody in their right mind wants to go through trouble for no reason at all.  No one wants to be stricken with a malignant tumor fighting for their life everyday while dealing with the pain and hardship of chemotherapy.  No one wants to experience the death of a loved one.  No one wants to deal with a lost job due to a difficult economy.  And the suffering only becomes harder to bear when it happens to a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ for doing what is right because he is being persecuted.

Most of 1 Peter talks about how Christians need to stand strong for what is right and to continue to live a godly life in Christ in the midst of trials, knowing that the Lord also suffered.  We will focus for the next few devotionals on the reasons why we should stand strong for the Lord.  But before going into any of that, we will jump ahead to the end of 1 Peter where Peter gives one of the most encouraging statements for a person in suffering, 1 Peter 5:10 – “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”  In one of the closing verses of this book, Peter reminds all the believers that God will do four things for us – restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish – as well as remind them of what Christ has called us to – His eternal glory in Christ.

One way suffering can be endured is when a person remembers that what he is suffering for is worth all the pain.  This knowledge can push people to endure the worst of conditions, like when a parent will undergo torture to protect his/her child.  For this reason, Peter first reminds all the believers to what they have already been called to – His (God’s) eternal glory in Christ.  All the pain, all the trouble, all the persecution in the end amounted to God being glorified in Christ for the world would see that the suffering was not done deservedly for sin but due to the witness of Jesus Christ.  Paul encountered persecution for the gospel of Jesus Christ and eventually the whole palace where he was a prisoner knew that he was not placed there for any other reason but for bringing glory to God (Phil 1:12-13).  Not only was Paul vindicated for his imprisonment, but his imprisonment in the end brought to more sharing of the Gospel and many more people coming to know Christ.  Paul’s suffering ended up bringing glory to God and in the end himself as well for we still remember Paul, who now is able to partake in the glory of Christ.  It is the same for each and every one of us who are disciples of Christ, for we are fellow heirs with Christ and can also partake in His glory.  We must just remember that every time we endure suffering and persecution for the sake of Christ, we are blessed, for ours is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:10).

After reminding them of what they had been called to and will experience in the future, Peter then goes through a four step process to which God would take us through after suffering – restoration, confirmation, strengthening, and establishing.  First, Peter talks about restoration.  When we experience suffering, one of the easiest things to do is to pack up our bags and give up, to lose ground in our faith in Christ, to fall back on old sinful habits that were already gone.  Peter must have intentionally started with this verb restore to remind any believer who had slipped up during suffering that God had not given up on them in any way, shape, or form, but was ready to restore them again.  Too often we feel embarrassed when we realize that we had made a mistake and doubted God in the midst of trouble and are too afraid to return to Him, fearing that He is out there to give us an “I told you so.”  But God is not looking to condemn us but is waiting to restore our relationship with Him.  Even Job though he questioned God in the midst of suffering, in the end, when he humbled himself before the Lord, was restored.   In the KJV, this verb is translated perfect, which also means complete.  This is a reminder that God will complete us fully in the last day, making us perfect before Him.  I personally lean towards the ESV translation of restore though since the Greek word is katartizo,  which means repairing something broken (http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/katartizo.html), in other words, restoring.  Even if there was no backsliding, suffering can take parts of you away and strip you of yourself, your emotions, your drive, and all of these things will be restored by Christ.

The second thing Peter says God will do is that He will confirm you.  The word in the Greek throughout the Bible has been translated as the word establish or confirm, both of which seem to carry the same idea in that something is being made sure of.  Interestingly enough, it was placed right after restoration, in that, God restores you after you might have backslidden and confirms your place in Him.  The restoration alone is an act of confirmation that you are still loved and cared for by Christ, but He goes over and beyond and specifically confirms your faith once again.  You can know for certain that Christ loves you and will never leave you or forsake you.  If you were a newscaster or writer, you might be told a small piece of information from a source, but unless you trust the source completely with your whole career and life, you usually need to confirm your facts and establish that they are true.  In the same manner, Christ not only restores your position and relationship with Him, but He will then confirm it for you, so that there will be no doubt in your mind of your relationship with Christ and where it is.

Third, Peter mentions how God will not only restore and confirm you but He will also strengthen you.  After going through hardship and suffering, falling back, and now returning, one of the hardest things to do is move forward.  Yes, you know that you are now in good graces with the Lord but it is still very difficult to move forward, knowing that you had fallen before, yet in this verse we are told that Christ will strengthen you, He will provide you the ability to go on.  At the same time, even if we had not lost faith in the midst of trials, there is no doubt that suffering will easily drain your drive to go on – whether it be living or continuing in the faith or growing in your relationship with the Lord.  We definitely need to find a source of strength to go on and that source is the Lord.  Isaiah 40:31 states it best, “But those who trust in the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”  In the LORD, we can find strength that can keep us going through any type of suffering and also the strength to continue on even if we had failed before.  May we always find our strength in the LORD.

Lastly, Peter reminds the believers that God will establish them.  After strengthening them, He will establish them.  Now, this word sounds very similar to confirm and seems like it means the same thing, but although it may be related, there is a subtle difference in that this word establish in the Greek means “to settle” or “to lay a foundation.” It means much more than just establishing an idea and letting one know it is true.  It takes that truth and causes a person to build his life on and around that truth so that nothing will ever shake it.  Confirm is like checking what someone said about the land on which someone wants to build his house, while establish is actually building the house on that land.  God not only restores our faith, confirms our faith, and strengthens our faith, but He establishes it so that it can never again be moved.  Romans 5:3-5 explains the process, “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”  Suffering led to a hope that could not be moved for it is established in the knowledge of God’s love and character.  As believers, we will no longer shift to and fro by the waves during suffering, but after a little while can find ourselves established in our faith not wavering in Christ, for our foundation is in Christ, our Rock.

1 Peter 5:10 is one of the great verses of Scripture to memorize and keep in mind in the midst of suffering, for although difficulties and persecutions arise, we can know for a fact that our Lord will in the end restore and repair where we have fallen or were hurt, confirm our faith and trust in Him as well as His Word, strengthen us to grow even farther in Him, and establish our faith so if and when another trial comes our hearts will stand even stronger in Him as our new character continues to be built to be more and more like Christ.  Remember His glory and your ability to partake in it, and remember His promise to restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.  Suffering can be endured when you know and trust the promises of God.