30th Mar 26 | 13:54
Studies by Book
Luke 16 14-17 The cross and the kingdom of God 09 God’s refreshing
📖 Luke 16:14-17
12Apr2020 - *God’s refreshing* - _Luke 16:14-17_ - Bible reading: _Acts 3:12-19_
_Luke 16:16 “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it._
God longs for man to come back into a relationship with Him and there experience His Shalom, His refreshing. The solution for our predicament is not just in finding a way out of this global epidemic but in being reconciled back with our Creator.
The lame man at the temple was only asking for alms, to survive for the day. This is our condition too, isn’t it? God does not want us to survive, He longs for us to be made whole and enjoy the fullness of His life when we are reconciled with Him at the cross.
This was the message of the early church and this is our message even today. _Act 3:12-17 So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people: "Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? (13) The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. (14) But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, (15) and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses._
Peter, very clearly, lays the responsibility of the crucifixion of Jesus, at the feet of the Jews. He does not spare them but he explains - though they, the Jews had killed Jesus, God was reconciling the world back to God through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. He declares that we, the church, are here to let the world know the message of God’s reconciliation of man to Himself through the cross.
The lame man, who was now made whole was a witness and so are all of us in the body of Christ. Our only task here on earth is to be witnesses to Jesus. _(16) And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. (17) "Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers._
Peter was connecting the message of the prophets of the Old Testament to Christ so that his Jewish audience would have no doubt as to what had happened at the cross. _Act 3:18-19 But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. (19) Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,_ He now brings the people to the point of conviction, repentance and surrender to Jesus as Lord, which would result in the Shalom or *God’s refreshing*.
Peter then takes it further that this message of God’s refreshing is not only for the Jews but also for the entire human race and for all of creation since God was reconciling all the families of the earth to Himself. _Act 3:24-26 Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. (25) You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, 'AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.' (26) To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities."_
*Thought to ponder*
The early church was a faithful witness of God’s refreshing. Will we join them in being faithful witnesses of the cross?