Mystery: Embracing the Truth of the GospelSample

Eternal reward or no eternal reward, the kind of life God calls His children to live is difficult. If it were easy, everyone would do it, but then, God wouldn’t receive the glory for it. See, when we do difficult things in difficult circumstances for His sake, we spur the world to consider Who He must be, what He must be like, and what He must be able to do to inspire such devotion.

Those who truly belong to God finish their race with their faith intact, but God doesn’t expect us to do it alone. He has given us two precious gifts to help us: His Holy Spirit and each other. The Holy Spirit always feels like a blessing because He is perfect and never lets us down, but the behavior of our spiritual brothers and sisters can sometimes make it difficult for us to recognize them for the blessings they are intended to be. Even so, we are all responsible for our own choices, and we have to do right by them even when they don’t do right by us.

In today’s passages, members of the early Church worked together to figure out how to follow Jesus without His physical presence. Despite challenges, difficulties, and persecution, they did the same things over and over as individuals so they could find their way together: they obeyed Jesus’ teachings, they used their gifts to serve one another, and they relied on God’s provision through the Holy Spirit.As a result, they became a true family, grew both individually and collectively, and made a lasting impact on the world, advancing God’s Kingdom in ways that couldn’t be explained apart from God’s goodness, faithfulness, and power. The same is possible today.

What are you willing to do and sacrifice to see God move the way He moved through the early Church and get the praise and recognition He deserves?