Encounter With God 20th April 2020 Devotional – Christ And Church Are One
TODAY’S TOPIC: CHRIST AND CHURCH ARE ONE
Opening Prayer: Lord, empower me to give a powerful testimony to someone.
Read Acts 26:1b–18
26 Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.”
So Paul motioned with his hand and began his defense: 2 “King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate to stand before you today as I make my defense against all the accusations of the Jews,
3 and especially so because you are well acquainted with all the Jewish customs and controversies. Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently.
4 “The Jewish people all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem. 5 They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that I conformed to the strictest sect of our religion, living as a Pharisee.
6 And now it is because of my hope in what God has promised our ancestors that I am on trial today.
7 This is the promise our twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night. King Agrippa, it is because of this hope that these Jews are accusing me. 8 Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?
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Encounter With God 20th April 2020 Devotional
9 “I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
10 And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord’s people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.
11 Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.
12 “On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests.
13 About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions.
14 We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic,[a] ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ Encounter With God 20th April 2020 Devotional
15 “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’
“ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. 16 ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
Footnotes:
a Acts 26:14 Or Hebrew
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate: Encounter With God 20th April 2020 Devotional “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12).
Think Further: This scene is a remarkable opportunity for Paul to share the Good News with influential people who would otherwise almost certainly not have heard it, in fulfillment of what Jesus has long ago promised this blinded but converted ex-Pharisee (Luke 21:12,13; Acts 9:15). This is the longest of Paul’s apologetic speeches in Acts, as well as the climax of the Pauline speeches and a summary of Acts’s Christological message.
Paul grounds his story in the Old Testament Scriptures—and yet is also intensely personal. As is his habit, he simply retells his Damascus Road experience (Acts 9:1–19; 22:4–21). His encounter with the risen Christ is clearly the turning point in Paul’s life. It reveals to him Jesus as Messiah, and it also underscores the Lord’s profound connection with his people, the church.
After all, Saul has been persecuting these very Christ-followers, and yet Jesus asks, “Why do you persecute me?… I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (14,15). Not surprisingly, Paul goes on to devote his life not only to Christ but also to his church, for this episode reveals that Christ and the church are one.
This is a profound truth, well worth wrestling with. It seems that Jesus takes personally the manner in which his church is treated, for he identifies with her as his body. When we mistreat Christians or slander a church, we mistreat Jesus. When we serve the church, we are serving Christ himself.
As followers of Jesus, we should think carefully about our relationship to the church, despite her flaws and wrinkles, for one can’t love Jesus without loving his church. Plainly, the two are one.
Apply: The profound connection between Jesus and his church helps us to understand Paul as a church-planter and leader. Do you need to repent for any hurt to Jesus’ church?
Closing prayer: Lord, we don’t understand some things, but we take them on faith. We therefore believe that You and Your body, the church, are one.
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Encounter With God 19th April 2020 Devotional
