In our readings from the Book of Acts it seems pretty obvious that Luke is writing about the beginning and growth of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, this is the purpose of Acts, to share the Good News that Christ’s followers have the courage to grow The Christian Community Fellowship. In the first thirteen chapters we have learned that it has taken a lot of committed work to ‘grow‘ The Church. Sharing the Good News and making disciples is the big part of the job Christ’s disciples accomplished in the first years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, God’s divine Son.

This story, we have learned, has not always been easy pickins for the disciples; in fact it has been a struggle for Paul and the disciples. As we read here in this fourteenth chapter our hero Paul, while he was at Lystra, encounters a man who was “a cripple from birth”. Verse 8 reads, “In Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet and had never walked.” Paul noticed the man listened with high intent what he was sharing about the Good News of Jesus Christ. The man looked and listened with faith to what Paul taught. So Paul said to the man in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And it is said that the man spring up and walked!

The reaction from the crowds was that Paul and his friend Barnabas must be gods. Now if they wanted they could have just simply accepted this foolishness and stayed resting upon their laurels. But this was not their call. They were to share the Good News of the risen Savior for the entire world! Making disciples was the call of the disciples’ in the Book of Acts. What of The Church in the world in our day? The Church of our Lord Jesus Christ today ought to make it their main job to make more and more disciples in our world! Share the Good News my friends with everybody every day that the world may know what we know, and be recipients’ of God’s Eternal Blessings. The good news will be that Christ will be alive in more and more lives in their troubled years. This is our high calling as Christ’s disciples in our world today.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, as we have been eternally blest with the Good News, may our lives now be given to the high call of sharing with all who have not learned that Jesus Christ has died and risen so they too may have eternal life. In the Savior’s name, Amen.