READ: Acts 4
THINK: You are His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you (1 Peter 2:9).
As newsman Clarence W. Hall followed American troops through Okinawa in 1945, he and his jeep driver came upon a small town that stood out as a beautiful example of a Christian community. He wrote, “We had seen other Okinawan villages, . . . down at the heels and despairing; by contrast, this one shone like a diamond in a dung heap. Everywhere we were greeted by smiles and dignified bows. Proudly the old men showed us their spotless homes, their terraced fields, .. . their storehouses and granaries, their prized sugar mill.”
Hall saw no jails and no drunkenness, and divorce was unknown. He learned an American missionary had come there thirty years earlier. While he was in the village, he had led two elderly townspeople to Christ and left them with a Japanese Bible. These new believers studied the Scriptures and started leading their fellow villagers to Jesus. Hall’s jeep driver said he was amazed at the difference between this village and the others around it. He remarked, “So this is what comes out of only a Bible and a couple of old guys who wanted to live like Jesus.”
The great power of God’s Word leads to salvation through faith in Christ, creating a “special people,” a community of believers who love one another, exhort one another, and serve God together. We need to pray that our churches will be an example of God’s power to a watching world.
The world at its worst needs the church at its best!
By: Herbert Vander Lugt in Our Daily Bread
PRAY: Start with a time of confession. Admit to God all the times you have shied away and chosen not to share him, all the times you have failed to live up to the example of Peter on John in Acts 4. Ask his forgiveness. And then ask him for opportunity. Believe that the gospel changes the world, and ask God to make you an agent of change!
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