NT40 Convictions for Acts 4-6

We've now started reading a chapter each day with the kids and wrestling with DWIS. Today's reading proves extremely convicting as we all seek to have the NT inform our minds, hearts, and consciences about what it means to live out Christianity. 

1. About God. The Holy Spirit is truly a Spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. We have the same Spirit indwelling us! The power of the Holy Spirit is evident through surrendered disciples throughout these opening chapters of Acts.

2. About NT Christianity. Amped! Epic! En Fuego! Fearless!

• "They seized Peter and John and, because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. But many who heard the mesage believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand."
• "then know this, you and all the pople of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised form the dead, that this man stands before you healed... Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved."
• "Which is right in God's eyes: to listen to you, or to Him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard."
• "Now Lord consider their threats and enable your servants to speak you word with great boldness."
• "All the believers were one in heart and mind."
• "They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail... At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people."
• "You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching"
• "We must obey God rather than men!"
• "They called the apostles and had them flogged... The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah."

3. DWIS (Do What It Says): This is certainly a daunting day for convictions - nonetheless, I will both pray and act to "speak your word with great boldness" — not vaguely, but specifically and clearly, in conversations, in my outreach, in my preaching.