"And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Acts 2:47b
It's just crazy to think about what happened to the early church. They had insane numbers of people coming to faith in Jesus on day one of their existence. Why? Because the power of the Spirit of God had invaded time, space, and the human soul, and now the dwelling place of God (or temple if you will) was not a stationary place in Jerusalem only, but a mobile, living, active dwelling in the soul of every believer and follower of Jesus.
In fact, in the early stages and days of the church, there were people being added to the church daily. Every day. Like Tuesday, some lady gives her life to Jesus. Then, on Wednesday, this young teenage boy falls on his face in reverence to the Living Messiah, Jesus. On and on these stories were seen in the early stages of the church.
So what was so compelling? What was the formula? Well, there was no formula, that is for sure. It seems in the early stages there was no strategy....at least on the human side. Simply, the believers decided that they would be radically obedient to the teaching of the apostles (which is preserved for us in what we call The Bible), that they would devote themselves to prayer in the faith that Jesus was listening, that they would "do life" together and eat together and meet each other's needs if there were any.
Again, what about this was so compelling? I think it was the love they had for Christ that yielded a deep love for one another, and a deep compassion for those that did not know Christ. They loved each other daily. They encouraged each other daily. They engaged a world in need of Jesus daily. And daily, people were coming to faith in Christ.
Man would that be cool to see today. The Church loving radically, living sacrificially, and showing a witness consistently. What might happen? Maybe the stories of life change would be stories that would affect your life. Maybe on a Tuesday, the lady that gives her life to Christ is your sister, or mom, or wife, or daughter. Maybe the boy on Wednesday that comes to faith in Christ is your son, or brother, or best friend, or neighbor. Maybe.
The question this drives me to is "How consistently do you love, pray, follow Christ, share, reach out?" How consistently do I?
Maybe the better question is "How consistently have I/we done these things..............daily?"
Daily is going to be where it is at. The romanticized ideal of spirituality that we read about and dream about and long for is really just a series of "daily" combined with another "daily" and then another. Deepening spirituality is really, in the words of Eugene Peterson, "a long obedience in the same direction."
Let's start that process. Loving, sharing, obeying, caring, reaching, protecting. Let's start................today, because daily is where it will happen.
