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They Yearned In Prayer
Brian Mashburn
March 9, 2008
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Plugging Into The Holy Spirit's Movement
The book of Acts is a record of the fantastic beginnings of the Jesus movement. The Holy Spirit was living and active and moving from heart to heart, person to person, at an incredible pace -the Jesus movement was giving life to people, as it was designed to do, and it attracted thousands at a time.
Isn't the same Holy Spirit still living and active? And isn't the church's mission the same now as it was then? And don't we still have people that need life, by the thousands, here in Amarillo alone? And shouldn't we be seeing Christ's life moving from heart to heart, person to person, as well?
If there is a difference in the "results" that the church in Acts was seeing and that the church in Amarillo is seeing, there are 2 possible explanations for it: First, maybe the circumstances of the 1st century world were just more conducive to the unstoppable movement of the Spirit than the circumstance we live within. If so, then we should keep doing what we're doing now and hope that the circumstances around us change and Acts-like growth happens.
But another option could be that the practices of the first century church members were more conducive for the unstoppable movement of the Holy Spirit than the ones that we are practicing now.
To be fair, you can probably take a little bit of both to explain why the church of today might not be producing new life in masses of people. But while we can't do anything about the circumstances we live in, we can certainly alter our own spiritual practices....if it would help, wouldn't we?
So here is one element of the first followers that we need to evaluate our practices up against...one that I believe connected the church to, and called forth the power of, the unstoppable force of the Holy Spirit. It's in Acts 1:14 - "They all joined together constantly in prayer."
In 28 chapters, prayer is mentioned directly 33 times in the Acts of the Apostles. Would Acts 1:14 be included if a book called "The Acts of the Southwest Church" were written?