The Way It Is

DEVOTION

 THE BOOK OF ACTS

THE WAY IT IS

Acts 2:44-47

44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

NIV

We certainly have left behind and trace of this New Testament church. This having everything in common thing in our society would never work because most if not all of us are way too attached to all our stuff. In fact many of us even have to rent a storage space to store some of our stuff because we don’t have room enough for it in our garage. But what would that look like today if we did have everything in common? Who among us has that kind of need? At least most of us who attend the same church seem to all have about the same amount of stuff, except of course for those who have so much they need a financial advisor to help them store it up in the right place to make it grow. Many of us have simply built bigger barns. Maybe that is the way it is supposed to be now. Maybe that everything in common thing was just for them at that time, and we now have a whole different system. Maybe by our tithing and giving offerings are our way of having everything in common, except our tithes usually just pay for all the salaries of the church staff, and upgrades to the church stuff. How do we deal with this selling our possessions and goods and giving to anyone as their have a need? This is just too hard so maybe we should just ignore it, see it as a historic record of what they did, and move on. They must not have had any jobs, if they continued to meet every day in the temple courts. We have to be content to meet once a week in the temple foyer, except once again we only meet a few of the others we actually know, the rest we sort of ignore, especially in the bigger churches.  At least we can break bread together, or at least gluten free wafers, or the like, whenever the pastor decides to have communion. Well maybe we can at least comply with having sincere hearts and praising God as well as enjoying the favor of all the people, except of course now in some countries it is not possible to enjoy the favor of all the people. Maybe we are not doing any of that either, for it does not seem that our number is being added to on a daily basis by God. Maybe that is why he is not adding to our number daily, because we are not doing any of what that early church did. This is going to take a lot of thinking over, who is going to start? Would this teaching even gather and support? If just one of us did it, the rest might just take advantage. No, we all would have to agree to this kind of life at the same time, otherwise it would just create greed in the hearts of some, envy in others, jealously in others, or some other form of un-Christ like attitude. So what do we do? How can we apply this to our life? Or should we just accept the fact it was for them, but not for us? It seems this is the way it is.