In the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “Thy kingdom
come.” It comes as no surprise that God’s
kingdom comes even without our prayers.
Who are we to stop God? And Acts
8 shows God’s unstoppable desire to save sinners.
Often people idealize the early church,
as if they were a group of semi-angelic saints who never did anything
wrong. The picture Acts presents to us
is quite the opposite. They were sinners
who messed up God’s mission, got confused on doctrine, had scandalous
backgrounds, and were socially unacceptable.
Don’t believe me? Look at Acts 8. It starts out talking about Saul, who led the
persecution of the church. Spoiler
Alert: In the next chapter he
becomes an Apostle. The chapter talks
about the church being scattered but spreading the Gospel, and look who does
that work. It’s not the Apostles, it’s
the folks who are running away from Jerusalem.
Then we read about Simon the Magician.
Not only is he the exact opposite of the kind of person we might expect
to come to faith, he tries to buy the Holy Spirit and has to be rebuked and
called to repentance! Finally, the
Ethiopian eunuch, while an important official, would have, religiously
speaking, been persona non grata
since he had likely been castrated; not to mention the fact that he was a black
man in a Middle Eastern culture. (Yes,
racism existed back then.)
These are the people God calls. God is not only concerned with folks who look
like us, smell like us, act like us, vote like us, or dress like us. When people come to faith their lives do not
instantly transform into beautiful reflections of heaven. Instead, as we come into the Kingdom of God
we enter through God’s grace as a bunch of stumbling bumbling sinners; sin
addicts who return to our bad behaviors and cling to God’s forgiveness as our
only hope.
Are there improvements in our outward
behavior so that the world sees the Kingdom of God in us. Certainly!
One cannot believe the promise of Jesus’ cross and empty tomb without being
changed! And someday we will be perfect,
but not today. Today we live by
grace.
Lord, let Your kingdom come to me, and help
me show Your kingdom in my life as You form me to love You and my neighbor as
myself. Amen.
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