The Essential Question (Part 1): The Church Is BornSample

The Essential Truth

Prepare: How have you made a difference for God with your life so far?

Read: Acts 1:1-11

Reflect: Luke is on his second career. He started out as a physician; now he's a writer (1:1). Why? Because he encountered Jesus. His new passion is telling the story of the man who changed his life. Compared to that, everything else is secondary. But that's what it means to be a Christian: you have a new passion in life–Jesus. He becomes your first priority.

The book of Acts is the sequel to Luke's Gospel, and Luke begins in the typical way, with a look back to where his first book left off–with the death and resurrection of Jesus (Acts 1:3-5; see Luke 22-24). It would be easy to breeze past this review, but we'd miss an important point: the first step to making a difference for God is being sure of the "many convincing proofs that he [Jesus] was alive" (1:3). Are you sure of this?

As we begin this journey through Acts, ask yourself, what's my real motivation for wanting to serve God? Is it gratitude for all he's done? Concern for a world in need? A desire to respond to his call? That's all good. But if like the disciples, it's a desire to push some other agenda, whether personal or political, that's not so good. So take time to prayerfully ask, are my priorities fully aligned with God's? Being a little off track now could take you way off course down the road.

What I find most intriguing about this passage, is the insight it gives us into the disciples' mindsets. When they had a chance to talk in private with the resurrected Jesus, their first concern was national issues (1:6). Jesus wanted to give them spiritual power so they could change the world (8), but all they wanted was political power so they could be in charge (6). Go figure. That's why Jesus made clear that the Holy Spirit was not coming to make them more prominent. Instead, he would make them more effective by empowering their witness (8). That's still the key to making a difference for God.

Luke ends his introduction by setting the stage for an even more dramatic sequel. Someday Jesus will come back, and when he does, it's going to be big, really big (11). This passage reminds us that the essential truth of the Christian faith is this: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Apply: Take some time to jot down the "chapter headings" or stages in your life story. Is there a chapter on how you encountered Jesus? If so, what difference has it made?