i'm back....in acts

so it's been a very long while since i have blogged. i apologize for keeping you wonderful people at bay. i am sure that you hoped for more glimpses of the peaks, and well, i am back by popular demand. please know that i am laughingly jokingly writing this. popular demand and i do not coexist, except maybe in my head. but nonetheless, i am back for a while. as many of you know i have just undergone a crazy ridiculous amount of insanity in my life. it's over now, the calm is here and i am writing about it. 

instead of filling this page with the glories of the battles gone and pressing, i have decided to blog about my delving into the book of Acts. i'll probably just make some observations and will be able to extract what God wants for my life right now. 

As for Acts: 

instead of reading chapter one right away, i started in Luke 24, not the entirety of the chapter, but just enough to be able to pick up where everyone is coming from in Acts 1. here's some thoughts on Luke 24 .44-53

vs. 44 ~ Jesus reveals that everything that was in the Bible must come to pass, whether it was the prophets or it was Law of Moses. there is something here about the concept of God fulfilling every promise to us in our lives that he has spoken in the Word and in our hearts. there is great encouragement and consolation in that God is sure to bring forth what has been planted. 

vs. 45 ~ after Jesus brought out this principle of fulfilling the Word, it says that he then opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. I think that we can see what God has written and given to us, when we begin to operate in a level of faith. in such, that we begin to believe the promises of God and that they will come to fruition if I will be willing to come into agreement and alignment with them. as we begin to act in our faith, it will be evident what God desires, instead of experiencing the opaqueness of trying to understand God without his active spirit. 

vs. 46-47 ~ this passage then begins to reveal the understanding of what God has been trying to since time began. He revealed his plan of Jesus coming and changing everything. my favorite part comes in vs. 47, where it says that we should preach repentance and forgiveness of sins.  alot of churches are preaching love superfluously. however, they are failing to realize that sin is a problem and that repentance means to completely acknowledge that your way of living life is wrong and that you need to accept to do and live life. 

vs. 49 ~ Jesus calls the Spirit "the promise." it is so strange because i never recall reading that before. my brain immediately begins to think about how the Spirit has always held the promise of God and initiated it's fruition in the earth. the promise of God was penultimately that Jesus would come, and now the promise is transferred to Jesus' spirit, so that the promises are all connected, intermingled, and inseparable. the promises continues today and forevermore. how awesome is it to see God begin to release his Spirit in the earth so that all things will be changed to what they were originally purposed for. 

vs. 52-53 ~ when one begins to see the promise of God and hope for it to come near, then we see that there is a response that is required, that is worship. the passage speaks about how when Jesus revealed into heaven, that they had to acknowledge him fully. in this same manner, they begin to long for the Lord as their departure would have left them with grief and sadness in their lives. however, it is in that sadness and barrenness (thank you Pastor Cappuccio), that God begins to minister and come to those places and bring life. so from the beginning of life we are set up to watch the power of the Spirit come into broken people, with broken hearts and watch them be restored to their state which God intended for them. the last thing in the book is that it reveals that when a person is longing for the Spirit of God that they will continually bless and seek God so that he may be found. 

Acts 1

vs. 1-5 ~ From the very beginning of this book, we are able to see that this book is going to verify the lives of those who seek the Lord and love him wholly. There is an understanding of the kingdom of God that begins to occur through the church, powered by the Spirit of God. 

* the promise of the Father is mentioned here again, which is so awesome because the book starts right away at reminding us it's connection with the entire gospel of Luke. 

vs. 6-7 ~ impatience in the kingdom of God is like an oxymoron. we will never be able to know what is going on except if we know the Father. i love that we are not to concern ourselves with the who, whats, hows, but instead we should be focused on the Him. he will come and express power into our lives so that we will be able to testify who he is and what he has begun in us. 

although the rest of acts 1 was really cool, these are the resonances. be blessed. 

- peaks out.