Spiritcode

PRAYER OF PEACE  There is a beautiful Scripture of our spiritual communion with God in Philippians 4:6-7 which says ‘Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’   The wonderful promise of the Prayer of...

THE GOSPELS 2 THE BAPTISM OF JESUS  We saw in the previous story of the Gospels, which was about John’s baptism of repentance, that the four Gospels were written by four different men of different temperaments and backgrounds who wrote from different perspectives and at different times.  This means that there were variations in detail and emphasis in the narratives and there were certain gaps in s...

GOSPELS 1 BAPTISM OF REPENTANCE  The combined accounts of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, give us a comprehensive narrative of the life of Jesus from his birth through to his resurrection and ascension into Heaven. The four Gospels are written by four different men of different temperaments and backgrounds who also write from different perspectives, so there are variations in deta...

ALL ABOUT DEDICATION  After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph had to bring Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to be dedicated, and Luke describes the dedication ceremony of Jesus in the temple in symbolic detail. ‘Then it was time for their purification offering as required by the law of Moses, so his parents took him to Jerusalem to dedicate him to the Lord. The law of the Lord says, “If...

THE GOD WITH US CHRISTMAS STORY God spoke to a man called Abraham two thousand years before Jesus was born a word of promise that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed, and the Hebrew nation that came from Abraham and that prophetic word of promise became the light that directed the path of the Hebrews.  That nation of Israel became the witness of God to the world through the...

Galilee of the Gentiles    Isaiah prophesied around 720 BC about a time and a place where great light would confront great darkness (Isaiah 9:1). The great light that he writes about occurred with the birth of Jesus, the first Christmas almost two thousand years ago, and the place was in the Middle east in a region called Galilee of the Gentiles, where the darkness of the tyranny of the Roman empi...

YOU ARE NOT ALONE We begin reading in Acts Chapter twenty-seven  Acts 27:1 Paul finally leaves Caesarea and starts his voyage of some two thousand seven hundred kilometres to Rome, along with Luke and another Christian named Aristarchus, and other prisoners, all in the custody of a Roman imperial guard named Julius. After battling headwinds, they landed at Smyrna on the coast of Turkey, and from t...

THE ENIGMA OF HOPE  We saw at the end of Acts chapter twenty-one, after the Turkish Jews tried to kill Paul and started a riot, the Roman centurion that rescued Paul from the angry mob gave Paul permission to speak to all the Jews from the steps of the temple of Jerusalem.  Acts 22:1 Brothers and fathers, listen to me as I offer my defence … Paul speaks in Hebrew to the Jews recounting his religio...

GODS SOVEREIGNTY AND OUR FREE WILL 1 We read in the last half of Acts Nineteen how Paul sets up a Bible school called the school of Tyrannus and teaches both Jews and Greeks the Gospel there for two years, and God works powerfully through Paul, so that people who even touched Paul's clothing and handkerchiefs were healed. Many evil spirits came out of people through Paul’s ministry and many people...

BAPTISM OF FIRE After Paul’s ministry to the Greek philosophers of Athens in Chapter Seventeen Paul left Athens and went to Corinth and met Aquila and his wife Priscilla and lodged with them, working together with them at their common trade of tentmaking. Aquila and Priscilla had just arrived from Italy after being expelled from Rome along with many other Jews by the Roman Emperor Claudius Caesar....

ONE BLOOD  Continuing the narrative in Acts seventeen from verse one we see that Paul and Silas and Timothy arrive at Thessalonica in the northern part of Greece, where Paul preaches in the synagogues as usual, teaching from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, and many Jews and devout Gentile Greek men and women believed. But Paul and his company encountered the usual opposition...

THE MIDNIGHT HOUR  We are continuing in the narrative of Silas now becoming Paul’s partner instead of Barnabas as Paul goes on his second missionary journey back to Lystra and Iconium  We now read in Acts Chapter sixteen and verse one that Paul and Silas go to Lystra where they meet a new Christian named Timothy, who had a Jewish Christian mother and a Greek father. Paul was so impressed with Timo...

GOD  ISRAEL  PAUL  US  We saw in the first part of Acts fifteen from verses one to eighteen last week how James interpreted the prophecy of Amos concerning the rebuilding of the Tabernacle of David. That prophecy foretold the future history of Israel and also that there will be a restoration of the house of God’s presence in the earth called the Tabernacle of David – and also called the church of...

FREEDOM OF FAITH  Acts 15:1 While Paul and Barnabas were at Antioch, some men from Judea arrived and began to teach the believers that unless they adhered to the ancient Jewish custom of circumcision, they could not be saved. Paul and Barnabas argued and discussed this with them at length, and finally the believers sent them to Jerusalem, accompanied by some local men, to talk to the apostles and...

THE FIVE SENSES OF THE SPIRIT  Just as we have five physical senses we also see those senses mirrored spiritually as spiritual senses of blessing and faith. The eyes of the Lord go to and fro…I have stretched out my hand to you…These Old Testament sayings were from a pure Spirit God without a body (Yet to come in the form of Jesus) THE SENSE OF SMELL  Philippians 4:18 I have received from Epaphrod...

DEATH TO LIFE Paul and Barnabas continue on their journey without John Mark, and they travelled down to Iconium and preached in the synagogue there, and many of the Jews and the Greeks believed. ACTS 14:1. At Iconium, Paul and Barnabas went together to the synagogue and preached with such power that many—both Jews and Gentiles—believed. We will read a little further on (vs 21 below) that when Paul...

BELIEVING IN AND BELIEVING ON Arriving at Acts Chapter thirteen we find that from this point on, Paul’s missionary journeys become the key feature of the Book of Acts. He was commissioned to do thos buy the leaders in the church at Antioch. Acts 13:1 The congregation in Antioch was blessed with a number of prophets and teachers, such as Barnabas, Simon, (nicknamed Niger the black one), Lucius the...

INNER RESURRECTION POWER Continuing in the Book of Acts Chapter eleven we see in verse nineteen the great changes to the church in Jerusalem because of the persecution of the church. Acts 11:19 The believers who had been scattered during the persecution after Stephen’s death travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch of Syria. They preached the word of God, but only to Jews.  That time of...

REPENTANCE TO LIFE  Acts 11:1 Now the apostles and brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. 2And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contended with him, 3saying, “You went to be with uncircumcised men and ate with them!” 4But Peter explained it to them in order from the beginning, Peter then tells them in the next seventeen verses...

GOD’S WORK OF RECONCILITION  The Book of Acts continues in Chapter nine describing the growth of the church and the work of the Holy Spirit through the ministry of the Apostle Peter. Acts 9: 31. Things then began to go peacefully in the churches throughout all of Judea and Samaria. The churches began to grow and multiply, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. So th...

SOVEREIGN OVER US The book of Acts is officially called the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, but many say that it could be renamed as ‘The Book of the Acts of the Holy Spirit’, because it was God acting sovereignly through the Holy Spirit in people who had yielded their will to his will for their lives. In Chapter nine we saw the sovereign work of God in changing the entire purpose of Paul’s life...

PAUL’S JOB DESCRIPTION  Acts 9 :1. Saul continued to terrorize the disciples of the Lord with murderous threats. One day he went to the high priest, saying he wanted letters of authorization he could give to those in the synagogues of Damascus, that if he found any followers of Jesus, men or women, he might arrest them and bring them bound as prisoners, to Jerusalem. 3. He set off on his journey,...

PHILIP AND THE EUNUCH – ACTS 8:26-40 The story of Acts chapter eight concerning Philip’s ministry in Samaria and the account of all the people there receiving the power of the Holy Spirit continues to unfold in a most powerful way. Acts 8:26. The angel of the Lord then spoke to Philip and told him to travel south on the road that goes from Jerusalem down to the desert region of Gaza. When he got t...

THE PROMISE OF THE FATHER Acts 8:1. Saul fully approved of Stephen’s execution. And then there arose a great persecution against the Jerusalem church, which caused disciples to flee from Jerusalem and be scattered throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria. But the apostles stayed in Jerusalem 2. Some faithful disciples carried Stephen to be buried, and there was much grieving and lamentation ov...

THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT  Reading from the last two verses of Chapter 6  Acts 6:14. and certain hostile Jews set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this temple and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.” And gazing at him, all who sat in the council s...