On This Day: Praying In a Series of Parallels

   And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” (Acts 4:29-30)

   When we read the history recorded in God’s word, our application of the word must be careful not to assume that what happened back then must happen now. A favorite illustration of this is Moses’ burning bush experience. That was history. It was not teaching us we need to go out in the wilderness and have our own burning-bush experiences.

   When I consider how the early church prayed about their first episode of persecution, I am immediately free to let myself pray and expect that God will give us boldness to continue making Jesus known in our increasingly hostile world.

   But when it comes to signs and wonders, there is such a mix of claims and fears about this that it requires some honest praying about our own hearts in relation to God’s word. This is because we usually hear the fights between the two extremes on the matter of signs and wonders and spiritual gifts. One side of the pendulum-extreme claims that God doesn’t work that way in our day. The other pendulum-extreme claims that God’s miraculous activity in the church is a three-ring circus where even the devil is welcome to make things happen.

   My concern is to find the parallel between what God was doing in the early church through his apostles and what it is supposed to look like now when God is doing his work through all the members of the body of Christ.

   In other words, the book of Acts revolves around how Jesus laid the foundation for the church through the apostles. You can read all about this in Ephesians 2 where Paul describes the apostles as the foundation of the church, Jesus as the cornerstone, and the rest of us as the blocks that make up the structure of the spiritual temple that is “a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

    So, the parallel to the boldness the early church prayed for is that we would be just as bold in continuing to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God in our day.

   However, the parallel to the early church seeing signs and wonders being done through the apostles is that we want God to work in our churches using all the spiritual gifts described in the New Testament (on God’s terms) so that the church Jesus is building on “the foundation of the apostles and prophets” is showing the same evidence of Jesus’ presence through the Holy Spirit that people will “declare that God is really among you” (I Cor 14:25).

   And with that, it should be obvious why this must be a matter of PRAYER!!!

   The opportunity for Satan to use such a glorious prayer to divide Christians is well-documented. The experiences of losing fellowship with people because of their rules about what the Holy Spirit is allowed or not allowed to do in our churches are painful memories reminding us of our weaknesses. Self-protection rules some who cannot bear the thought of God doing something they can’t control. Self-glorification rules others who must be in the spotlight even if they need to fabricate mirages of signs and wonders when God is not the least bit impressed with their pride.

   As I receive God’s word this morning, it is with a sense that I must let God lead me into his will about this, and I must pray with all my heart for God’s activity in his church to be just as evident now as it was in the early days of the church. Jesus is still building his church. The gates of hell still cannot prevail against what Jesus is building. Satan is fulfilling what Scripture warned about him that he would steal, kill, and destroy God’s work wherever people will let him.

   With all that in mind, Jesus’ church prays for the Triune God to be glorified in us, among us, and through us, so people know that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. And, when Jesus saves sinners, he saves them into the fullness of life, a life that must be pursued in prayer so our hearts are ready to attach to God in whatever he shows us he is doing.

 

 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)