Abstaining and Doing

 DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

ABSTAINING AND DOING

Acts 15:12-21

12 The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the miraculous signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. 13 When they finished, James spoke up: "Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simon has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself. 15 The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:

16 "'After this I will return and rebuild David's fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, 17 that the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things'  18 that have been known for ages.  

19 "It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. 21 For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath."

NIV

The first thing we need to focus on is that God is always the one who performs the miraculous signs and wonders, though he usually does so through one of his faithful followers. That does not mean that working through someone is always the case, as God can simply perform any miracle at any time, in any way he chooses. Yet the story is again about the Gentiles receiving and accepting the word of God as well as being filled with the Holy Spirit. The apostles, the spiritual leaders of this new church, based on salvation through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, needed to come to an agreement regarding whether the Gentiles needed to be concerned about the law of Moses and all the oral traditions of Judaism, or should they be instructed as to living a life that would please the Lord. It is clear that James made the right judgment, and they decided that three basic life changes should occur among the Gentile believers. Because we are Gentiles, although we have far more instructions, we know that we would never have anything to do with sacrificing food to idols; we get ours at the store, and the blood has already been drained. We certainly   do not know about any of our meat ever coming from strangled animals, but we cannot imagine any processing plants or slaughterhouses doing that. We would also think most believers are not involved in sexual immorality, although we can never be certain that is an absolute overall truth. Nevertheless, we still have other areas we need to address through prayer and obedience, which should lead us to abstain from jealousy, envy, pride, anger, self-centeredness, gossip, and unforgiveness. Instead, we should be building each other up, encouraging one another, and loving one another. Let us remember that God has chosen to reveal Himself to all people. We have accepted his truth and should try to live lives that please him, allowing the Spirit to lead and empower us to follow Jesus. They wrote a letter to the Gentiles with instructions, and we have many letters now, with many instructions we should follow. Because we cannot be as perfect as we should be, we need to rely on the Spirit to do the work within us, just as we rely on Jesus for our salvation. Yes, there are areas in our lives we need to abstain from, but there are areas we just need to be doing.