{"id":1317,"date":"2018-11-25T09:39:50","date_gmt":"2018-11-25T17:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/?p=1317"},"modified":"2018-11-25T09:39:50","modified_gmt":"2018-11-25T17:39:50","slug":"devotion-acts-236-41-the-truth-saves-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/?p=1317","title":{"rendered":"Devotion Acts 2:36-41 The Truth Saves Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Acts 2:36-41\u00a0<\/b>\u2013\u00a0\u201cTherefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord\u00a0and Messiah.\u201d 37\u00a0When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, \u201cBrothers, what shall we do?\u201d 38\u00a0Peter replied, \u201cRepent and be baptized,\u00a0every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.<\/i><\/span>\u00a039\u00a0The promise is for you and your children\u00a0and for all who are far off\u2014for all whom the Lord our God will call.\u201d 40\u00a0With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, \u201cSave yourselves from this corrupt generation.\u201d41\u00a0Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number\u00a0that day.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cWith many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, \u201cSave yourselves from this corrupt generation.\u201d<\/i>\u00a0 Peter warned his listeners to save themselves from the corrupt generation they lived in. In fact, he pleaded with them to save themselves.\u00a0 He had already explained to them how to save themselves by faith in Jesus, now He pleaded with them to save themselves.\u00a0 Peter could have mechanically and impassively delivered the message and cared little about the results.\u00a0 He could have done the duty without the heart.\u00a0 However Peter delivered the message with great passion.\u00a0 He delivered the message with great love.\u00a0 Peter cared and so he delivered the message with the love within him, with the love of God pouring out of him.\u00a0 When people know we care and that we passionately believe, then they are more likely to listen.\u00a0 If our voices, our lives, do not reveal a passion about what we believe in whom we believe in, then what will be related by us to others is that what we are conveying to them is not so grand, not so exciting, not so important.\u00a0 People must see from our lives that we are passionate and committed to what we believe and then, perhaps, they will listen to the words that we share.\u00a0 We must love with great passion He who first loved us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Family, please know, we need not have lived a perfect life in order to share our testimony. \u00a0No-one has.\u00a0 Truly we want to live a life of Godly holiness, as we can, but none of us are perfect.\u00a0 In fact, that very truth is what can help others to understand that we are saved by grace and so can they be.\u00a0 See, though we never want to sin, the fact that we do and can still confidently state that we are going to heaven, is bewildering to those who don\u2019t understand verses such as\u00a0Ephesians 2:8-9<\/b>\u00a0that confirm that we are saved not by any works we do, but only by the grace of God.\u00a0 God forgives murderers, thieves and sexual sinners just as quickly, purely and easily as He forgave us.\u00a0 So we can tell them with firm conviction that God can and will forgive everyone that comes to Him in humility and in repentance, just as He did for us.\u00a0 A perfectly sinless life is what we all aspire to, but it is in the weakness of our flesh that to some our testimony shines brightest and is more relatable to them.\u00a0 Though the Lord wants us to never sin, He can even use our sin to His glory.\u00a0 Family, having sinned, any kind of sin, does not disqualify us from sharing our faith.\u00a0 That is a lie from the enemy.\u00a0 Certainly our testimony is that if God saved me, He can save you.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

World renowned Dr. James Dobson was asked by serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer to visit him in prison.\u00a0 Knowing of Dahmer\u2019s grisly past of murder and cannibalism, Dr. Dobson severely doubted the rumors of the conversion of Dahmer to Christ.\u00a0 Dobson did not want to visit Dahmer, but felt compelled by God to do so.\u00a0 Though Dr. Dobson had come not wanting to believe that this heinous murderer could have come to the Lord, by the time he left, Dr. Dobson was convinced that Jeffrey Dahmer had repented and been saved by Jesus Christ and was bound for heaven.\u00a0 Many people, Christians and not, found this conclusion by Dr. Dobson reprehensible and impossible to believe.\u00a0 When hearing of a heinous person coming to the Lord some people make statements such as \u201cIf God will have him in heaven then I don\u2019t want to go there!\u201d\u00a0 How sad.\u00a0 How unknowing that all of us are sinners (Romans 3:23<\/b>) and that no-one gets to Heaven except by the grace of God through Jesus Christ (Romans 3:24-26<\/b>).\u00a0 Also, when one states that the blood of Christ is not strong enough to save the worst of us, we are calling the blood of Christ impotent and limited.\u00a0 It is quite an offensive statement.\u00a0 As\u00a0John 3:16<\/b>\u00a0states, Jesus came to save the world, which is filled with people who do evil.\u00a0 Family, to a pure God, even our good deeds are filthy compared to Him (Isaiah 64:6<\/b>).\u00a0 The problem with thinking we are less of a sinner than anyone else is that our comparison of ourselves is erroneously horizontally compared to each other rather than comparing ourselves to God.\u00a0 Next to the purity of God, the righteousness of all of us is putrid. Even past great men of God who have come into God\u2019s presence fall on the ground and confess the impurity of themselves and all men.\u00a0 Isaiah called himself and all people unclean before the eyes of the LORD Almighty (Isaiah 6:5<\/b>).\u00a0 Jesus said that only God is good (Mark 10:18<\/b>).\u00a0 Family, it is not a shame that God could forgive Jeffrey Dahmer, it shows the wondrous power of the blood of Jesus to save all, even those we consider most heinous.\u00a0 Praise God!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Peter called his generous perverse.\u00a0 How much more so our generation?\u00a0 Nowadays, being the last days, so often evil is called good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20, Romans 1:32, 2 Timothy 3:13<\/b>).\u00a0 Sin is normalized and the call to join in sin is pervasive in all societies, and the drumbeat of the call grows stronger.\u00a0 Indeed, we must warn and plead all people to come out of sin and be saved.\u00a0 All who have not come to Jesus to be saved remain condemned (John 3:18<\/b>).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThose who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number\u00a0that day.\u201d<\/i>\u00a0 And so, though the world thought that by killing the body of Jesus His message would be squashed, not long after His resurrection and ascension His message came back with great supernatural force.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit filled the Lord\u2019s disciples with powerful supernatural gifts and the Gospel message came back like a mighty flood to save three thousand people after Peter\u2019s Holy Spirit inspired sermon.\u00a0\u00a0Acts 17:6<\/b>(KJV) states that in a short time the disciples of Christ, all disciples of Christ, are turning the world \u201cupside down.\u201d\u00a0 A very interesting term as the world was upside down and the Christians were leading people to Christ at every turn, and so they were turning the upside down to be right-side up.\u00a0 Praise God!\u00a0 What the Jews did not understand is that the Holy Spirit was saving people though people.\u00a0 Just as God planned.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So the question we need to ask ourselves is \u201cHow are we allowing God to lead and empower us to turn our world, our spheres of influence, upside down?\u201d\u00a0 That is what we are called to do, not in our power, but by the power of the Holy Spirit working through us.\u00a0 Praise God!\u00a0 Let it be Lord!\u00a0 Praise God!<\/span><\/p>\n

Psalm 150:6<\/strong>\u00a0–\u00a0Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Micah 7:7<\/strong>\u00a0–\u00a0But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Micah 6:8<\/strong>\u00a0–\u00a0He has shown You, O man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; And what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acts 2:36-41\u00a0\u2013\u00a0\u201cTherefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord\u00a0and Messiah.\u201d 37\u00a0When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, \u201cBrothers, what shall we do?\u201d 38\u00a0Peter replied, \u201cRepent and be baptized,\u00a0every one of you, in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[82,1841,103,100,94,17,10,2036],"class_list":["post-1317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-acts","tag-ephesians","tag-isaiah","tag-john","tag-micah","tag-psalm","tag-romans","tag-timothy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1318,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions\/1318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}