{"id":17624,"date":"2019-05-20T16:54:33","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T21:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/?p=17624"},"modified":"2019-05-28T11:10:10","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T16:10:10","slug":"god-is-doing-more-than-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/god-is-doing-more-than-you-think\/","title":{"rendered":"God is doing more than you think"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><sup> <\/sup><\/strong><em>Simon Peter answered, \u201cYou are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.\u201d<br><\/em><strong><sup><em> <\/em><\/sup><\/strong><em>Jesus replied, \u201cBlessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. <br>Matthew 16:16-17<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A Moment to Ponder<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Someone posed this question; \u201cWhat\nhappens in the 29<sup>th<\/sup> chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Before I\nrealized it, I was searching in my mind and fumbling with my phone, trying to\nremember what happens in that chapter. Then I realized that it was a trick\nquestion! The book of Acts ends at chapter 28! As we know, the Book of Acts is\njust what the title tells us it is. It relates the acts (actions) of the\nApostles. And describes the way the Holy Spirit worked through the first\napostles. But, the stories of the Spirit don\u2019t end with the last chapter of\nActs. They have continued with\/in us. So we are all the authors of Acts 29. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus wants all of us to be \u201crocks\u201d\nof his church, just as he called Peter (Matthew 16:18). Like Peter, we too have\nthe Holy Spirit living in us, filling us with grace and directing our lives. We\ndo not always see God at work in us. But just because we don\u2019t see him, that\ndoes not mean he is not there. He is constantly at work in our hearts, drawing\nus toward Jesus. And if we are to look deeper, the truth may well be that we\nare bearing far more spiritual fruit than we think. And the truth could be that\nActs 29 is really unfolding in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The acts that we do may not be\nrecorded in the Scripture or in the annals of church history. But God sees\neverything that we do \u2013 every small act of kindness, every passing moment of\ngenerosity, every battle against temptation. Nothing goes unnoticed or\nunrecorded in his Book of Life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We must regard as special and\nencouraging, the stories of how the Spirit transformed and empowered ordinary\npeople and sent them into the world as ambassadors. We can learn from them how\nthe Spirit worked \u2013 and how he can work in our hearts today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>St Luke tells us that on the day of\nPentecost, the apostles experienced a powerful sense of God\u2019s presence. They\nfelt his love. They received a new understanding of God and a new desire to\nshare his gospel.&nbsp;&nbsp; Jesus has sent this\nsame Holy Spirit to fill us, so that we too can come to know God. Every one of\nus can do the work of the Lord because we have the Spirit<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He may ask us to put away a\nlongstanding prejudice we have against someone. He may propel\/lead us into a\nnew ministry in our church\/parish \u2013 something we least expected to do. It may\nbe to patch up a broken relationship. Whatever the situation we should always\nremember that Jesus came to save everyone. We should always put aside our own\nideas of how God will work, and be open to the Spirit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Saul of Tarsus, a devout Jew, and\nPharisee followed the law blamelessly. While on his way to Damascus he realized\nhe was actually persecuting Jesus. For the rest of his life, Paul learnt how to\nyield to the Spirit, so that he could accomplish the \u201cwork\u201d God had in store\nfor him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Story continues: The Spirit\ncontinues to work powerfully today. He is still transforming ordinary human\nbeings into the likeness of Jesus. He is still bringing us together to build up\nthe church. He is still empowering us the spread the gospel. The first\nbelievers, through their faith and intentional approach, bore marvellous fruit.\nYou are next to find the Holy Spirit working wonders in your life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Take\nAction<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>A simple method to approach prayer\nas well as to improve our spiritual vision. Let it be the step you take in this\nEaster season and see a change in your life:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How to pray: Sing to help you\nclear\/settle your mind<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Focus on Jesus \u2013 see him as the one\nwho is delighted to have you in his presence<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read a passage from scripture and spend time meditating on it<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ask the Holy Spirit to open your\neyes to something new in the passage and how it affects your life<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Write down a few thoughts and try to\nrecall\/live them throughout the day<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A Moment in Prayer<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Dear Lord, it is not hard to see your hand at work in our lives. Bless us in this special season of our discipleship journey. Come Holy Spirit and show us how we are continuing the book of Acts even today. Make us into shining witnesses of your love and power. Amen <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Contributed by Melrose Wiggan<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Simon Peter answered, \u201cYou are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.\u201d Jesus replied, \u201cBlessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. Matthew 16:16-17 A Moment to Ponder Someone posed this question; \u201cWhat happens in the 29th chapter&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":17627,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible-moment","ctfw-has-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17628,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17624\/revisions\/17628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}