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Category: Acts (Page 1 of 12)

Trusting the Good News

April 24, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Every single time the New Testament says somebody is filled with the Holy Spirit, without exception, their mouths open and they start talking about Jesus. Most of those instances are in Acts and Luke, but they are all remarkably consistent. And intentional. The Bible is telling us that the indwelling Spirit gives us the power, he gives us the boldness and courage, to share the Good News with others. You can do and say things for our Lord Jesus with God living inside you that you could never do by yourself.

This is God’s plan. This is how he works. It’s part of the Good News. The problem is, we don’t trust it. We don’t always trust the way God works to spread the Good News and expand his Kingdom to save people.

We don’t trust the Gospel to connect and transform people. Or we don’t trust God’s way or God’s Spirit to communicate his Good News through us. We forget that there’s not one single person I could talk to about Jesus that God’s Spirit hasn’t already been working on. When God puts somebody in my path and an opportunity right in front of me, the fact is that he has been convincing them and drawing them and preparing them for a while now. God’s already started something with this person a long time ago and he’d be thrilled if I just jumped in and shared the fun.

Pew Research released their state of the church report two weeks ago. According to their surveys and research, in 2007,  63% of all Texans went to church at least once a month. In 2024, just 17 years later, the percentage of Texas residents who go to church at least once a month is down to 38%. The odds are right now today higher than they’ve ever been in your life that your next-door-neighbor doesn’t go to church. The odds are higher right now than they’ve ever been since you were born that your co-worker is not a Christian.

And I’m guessing you don’t know how to talk to them about it. The very thought of talking to your friend or neighbor about Jesus or about the Good News makes your stomach fall into your socks. You say you don’t know how to have a spiritual conversation.

Yes, you do. You just don’t trust it. You don’t trust the Good News. Or you don’t trust God’s plan or God’s Spirit.

Talking to people about Jesus is a Holy Spirit activity. You don’t have to start anything with your neighbor or classmate; God’s already started it! Our Lord tells us that God’s Spirit is at work around the clock convincing men and women, exposing what’s wrong in the world, and drawing all people to himself. The Holy Spirit is convicting people of their sin and compelling men and women to seek righteousness and avoid judgment. God’s Spirit is working hard on people all around you. And this same Spirit lives inside you, empowering you like you can’t believe.

Pray that God will open a door, pray that you proclaim Christ clearly, and make the most of every opportunity (Colossians 4:3-5). The Holy Spirit will put the person directly in front of you, the Holy Spirit will tell you what to say, and the Holy Spirit will do with your conversation what’s going to be best, what he’s already planned and been working on. If you’ll only trust the Good News.

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The Dallas Stars have played three games against Colorado in this first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, they have led the Avalanche for a total of just 62-seconds, and yet they are leading the series two games to one. Two come-from-behind overtime thrillers. Last night, the Stars had to kill off a four-minute double-minor power play at the end of regulation and at the start of overtime just to get to Tyler Seguin’s sudden death winner. For drama, athleticism, pressure, grit, adrenaline, anticipation, and edge-of-your seat tension, there is nothing better than overtime playoff hockey. It’s like having a heart attack on a roller coaster in an electrical storm. Can’t wait til Saturday.

Go Stars

Allan

GCR’s Theophanies

September 24, 2024 / / 2 Comments

In Acts 4, the early Church is facing cultural opposition and political oppression in Jerusalem. Peter and John have been jailed, interrogated, and ordered to cease speaking and teaching about the resurrected Jesus. So they go “back to their own people,” they gather with the Church, and they pray for God to give them even more boldness to continue speaking about Jesus and they ask God to stretch out his hand to heal and perform even more miracles and wonders to glorify Jesus.

Our God responds to the prayer immediately by shaking the building and filling them all with Holy Spirit courage.

It’s called a theophany. it’s a visible appearance of God. God revealing his presence in a real, physical way you can see or feel.

God did this for Moses at the burning bush. The fire and the smoke got Moses’ attention and our Lord told him, “I am with you.” God said, “I will be with you,” and he gave Moses the boldness he needed to speak to Pharaoh.

God revealed himself this way to his people on Mount Sinai. There’s thunder and lightning, smoke and fire and noise, and the whole mountain is shaking. “I am with you,” God says. “You are my people and I am your God.” His presence gives them the increased courage and faith they need to obey the commands he gives them on the mountain.

Isaiah experiences the same thing. He goes into the Temple and sees our holy God on his eternal throne. There is smoke and noise and the whole Temple begins to shake. God asks, “Who will go for us?” And Isaiah goes from “Woe is me; I am ruined,” to “Here I am! Send me!”

Go and tell the people. I am with you. Go and speak. I’m right here. Go and live. I am with you. Go and proclaim.

It happens to the first Church on the Day of Pentecost. Those 120 disciples of Jesus praying in the upper room are blown away by the noise, the wind, and the fire. God is here with us! All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, Scripture says, both the men and the women, and they began to speak.

I suggest to you that these kinds of things are still happening today if we’ll pay attention and notice. Our spiritual God is still making himself known in physical ways in order to assure us of his presence and fill us with Holy Spirit boldness. We get these theophanies here at Golf Course Road all the time.

In the past 22 months since we launched our vision of transformation and mission–just a little less than two years ago–we’ve had 174 people place membership at GCR. That’s 174 men, women, and children who are jumping in with our church family. And we don’t know how they’re getting here or why they’re coming. With a lot of our new members, there’s no real connection, no personal invitation, or particular event. They’re just showing up and forming relationships and embracing the mission and becoming important parts of what God is doing in us and through us here. It’s a physical reminder that our God is the one who gathers his people and brings them together for his holy purposes. We’re seeing it here. It’s real.

In that same time frame, in a little less than two years, we’ve had 61 baptisms here at GCR. That reminds us that, yes, God is still saving people. God is still at work in people’s lives. God is still rescuing people and snatching souls from hell! We’re seeing it all the time.

Last May, there were about 30 kids at Emerson Elementary who had lunch debt in the school cafeteria  and were about to be cut off. They were going to be served inferior lunches in special bags for the last month of the school year. It would mark these students as different. It would make them stick out. So we paid off their debt. We didn’t ask any questions, we didn’t ask anybody to fill out a form. Did you know you were in debt? How much debt do you owe? Are you trying to pay off the debt? Would you meet us halfway with your debt? No! We didn’t do any of that, we just paid it all off. Just like Jesus. Just like our God in Christ who forgives our debt and pays off our sin and rescues us from bondage. These students and their parents got a physical, tangible, living parable or proof of God’s grace that sets us free.

Those one hundred Mission Agape boxes we provide every Thanksgiving. Our people buy the food and pack the boxes, and we distribute them to families in need in Midland County. That’s physical proof that our God is still providing what people need through our community of faith.

The “4 Midland” worship services with First Methodist, First Presbyterian, and First Baptist. There are always 800-1,000 of us in each other’s buildings, singing with our combined choirs, praying together in our different traditions, loving and accepting one another in the name of Jesus, putting aside our denominational differences to unite for the sake of our city.

That takes Holy Spirit courage! That’s Holy Spirit community! That’s proof that our God is determined to bring all things and all people together in Christ, and he’s doing it in us and through us at GCR! Yes, our God is still stretching out his hand to heal, he is still performing miracles and wonders through the name of his holy servant Jesus! And we’re experiencing it here all the time!

Our spiritual God is constantly making himself known to us in physical ways. We know our God lives inside us and we know his Son is our Lord. So we are not defined by the times. The government does not control how we live our lives. Technology does not define our existence. Postmodernism does not determine how we think. News and entertainment does not account for who we are. We must break the faithless and ignorant habit of letting the journalists tell us what’s doing on. We need to at least give the Holy Spirit equal time!

Peace,

Allan

Praying with New Partners

September 12, 2024 / / 1 Comment

Three years into our ministry in Midland and I am still meeting ministers and pastors who are just as concerned as I am with joining Jesus in breaking down the denominational and racial walls that divide his people. My new friend Elvie Brown, the pastor at Common Unity Church, organized a prayer meeting for a bunch of us on Tuesday and I was honored to kneel in prayer beside so many passionate men and women, crying out to the Lord together for unity, fellowship, partnership, and common Christian love.

We prayed for each other’s ministries. We prayed for each other’s families. We prayed for each other’s churches. We asked our mighty God to tear down the walls that divide us: economic walls, geographic walls, racial walls, denominational walls, political walls, gender walls. We reminded one another and acknowledged to God in prayer that we are one in Christ Jesus today and forever. And when we live into that reality the whole world will know that he is Lord and we are his.

We spent nearly an hour-and-a-half in prayer together inside the gym at the Teen Flow Center in the south part of Midland. I was at the same table with Jon Wymore. I met and prayed with Ken Johnson, the longtime pastor at Goodwill Missionary Baptist. I thanked Elvie for the privilege of joining such a wonderful group of Christian leaders in our city.

And I thank God for so many in this city who care more about his everlasting Kingdom than they do their own churches or denominations.

I experienced some of that Acts 4 homothumadon Tuesday night. God was there. Listening. Speaking. Encouraging. Inspiring. Transforming. We were there together in his presence. Focused. Intense. Committed. Open. It was a humbling thing for me, something I didn’t know how badly I needed.

My community of Gospel partners is a little bigger today. Walls are coming down in Midland and in my own heart. And I thank God.

Peace,

Allan

Resurrection Community

April 2, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Not one person experienced the resurrection of Jesus alone. Nobody encountered the risen Jesus by themselves. The people who saw the empty tomb and the angels, the ones who ate dinner with Jesus that evening–they were all with their friends. Most of them, we know their names. We know their stories. We know about their relationships with one another.

The resurrection of Jesus creates togetherness. It creates community. It forms us together as one people today, just like it did then.

“Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ.” ~Ephesians 2:4-5

I still think the best picture of this is in Acts 2. Those first disciples who witnessed the risen Lord, those first 120 followers of Jesus who were gifted by the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit at Pentecost, are living resurrection life together in community.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the community, to the breaking of bread and to prayer… All the believers were together and had everything in community. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 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.” ~ Acts 2:42-46

They didn’t have a whole lot in common other than the resurrection. But they acted like family. Every day. In each other’s homes. Loving each other. Serving each other. Ministering to one another. Taking care of each other. Eating together. Praying and singing together. They devoted themselves to the community.

The resurrection community is like a neighborhood, but it’s more personal. It’s like a family, but it’s more diverse. It can be like a football team or a civic club, but it’s much stronger. Your resurrection community, your church family, is brought together and held together by something much bigger than you. But some of you just aren’t around enough to be changed by it. Some of you–seriously–we hardly ever see you.

We need each other. None of us can do this by ourselves. It’s impossible. We were raised by Christ and with Christ to be together. I need you. And whether you admit it or not, and whether you like it or not, you need me.

You need me to love you. I need you to encourage me.

You need me to challenge you. I need you to correct me.

I need your strength when I’m tired. You need my support when you’re down.

I need your patience when I’m out. You need my joy when you don’t have any.

We all need to remind each other about the resurrection and our parts in it. We all need to be able to look around and see clearly that we’re not in this new resurrection lives by ourselves.

Peace,

Allan

Easter Blessing

March 31, 2024 / / 0 Comments

The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead! God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him!”
~Acts 5:30-32

Christ Jesus our Lord is risen and reigning today, right now, at the right hand of God. May he bless us and his Church with the same boldness and courage of the disciples who witnessed it.

Peace,

Allan

Your Comfort Zone

May 16, 2023 / / 0 Comments

How do I know the difference between my own voice and the voice of God? My heart, my mind, my conscience – I talk to myself a lot.  And sometimes I lie. I get nudges and impulses everyday. And sometimes they’re wrong. How do I discern when it’s God speaking to me and when it’s just me?

One way is to know that God’s voice will always challenge your comfort zone.

The voice of the self always leans toward safety and security. That’s our default. The flesh always moves to do and say whatever it takes to protect the self. It’s natural for us – we don’t even think about it. So we assume the voice of God will tell us the same thing. We think God will say to us, “Be safe. Be careful. Protect yourself.”

But that’s not true. You’ve noticed that people in the Bible who hear the voice of God are generally called to move out of their comfort zones. They’re called by God to be risky. Our God never appeared to anybody in the Bible and said, “I am the Lord your God. I am calling you to stay put! Don’t change a thing! You’re good!” No. God’s people are called by God to take bold steps and make even dangerous moves for the Kingdom.

In Acts 21, Paul is on his way to Jerusalem when he and Luke stop in Caesarea to stay a few nights at Philip’s house. One of those nights, a prophet from God shows up and relays a message from the Holy Spirit: Paul is going to be captured in Jerusalem on account of his preaching and turned over to the authorities.

“When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem.” ~Acts 21:12

The people interpret the message from God as “Don’t go to Jerusalem.” Stay here. Be safe. Luke says, I was right there with ’em. We begged Paul not to go.

“Then Paul answered, ‘Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.’ When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, ‘The Lord’s will be done.'” ~Acts 21:13-14

Why would we assume that when God warns you about danger, he’s telling you to avoid it? Paul says, look, I knew what I was doing when I surrendered my life to a Lord who carries a cross. Paul knew that following God’s voice is risky. It’s dangerous.

That is the voice of God pushing you to witness to a co-worker. That is God’s voice challenging you to trust him with your giving. It’s the voice of the Lord calling you to serve people who don’t look like you or talk like you. God’s voice will always challenge your comfort zone.

Think about it. If your great ambition in life is to have a nice house or two and a big bank account and to put off your funeral as long as possible, why do you need to hear from God? You don’t need God to do any of that. If you’re not on a divine quest, why would you need a divine guide?

Do you want to hear God’s plans for you, or do you just want God to endorse your plans?

If you will grow in your eagerness and your capacity to hear God, a whole new life will open up for you. A life of adventure. A full life behind the leading of God’s Spirit. An exciting relationship with the Creator of Heaven and Earth. The life you were meant by him to always live.

Peace,

Allan

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