Tuesday, January 24, 2006
A Lesson from the
“These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.” —Acts 17:6
I am shocked at how, on almost a weekly basis, it seems that things get spiritually worse and worse in our culture. People flaunt their immoral lifestyles. They wink at things the Bible says are clearly wrong. And then there is the violence in our culture.
When we see how wicked things are getting, we might want to just throw up our hands and say, “Forget it. I might as well just retreat into my Christian subculture and hope the problems go away or that the Lord gets back to Earth quickly and gets us out of here.”
I’m all for getting out of here. I’m all for meeting the Lord in the air with all true believers. But it was said of the first-century church, the early church, that they turned their world upside-down. By the way, that was not said as a compliment. It was really given as a criticism. But there was something about this group of believers that profoundly impacted their culture. They didn’t have television. They didn’t have the ability to publish their materials. They did not have the numbers or the resources that the modern church has. Yet in a relatively short period of time, they turned their world upside-down.
Could it be said of the church today that we are turning our world upside-down? For that matter, could that be said of you and me, as members of the church? We can impact our culture if we do it in God’s way and in God’s power.
I have often said that the holiest moment of a church service is when God’s people go out the door as changed people, doing what they can to turn their world upside-down.
Copyright © 2006 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Bible text from the New King James Version is not to be reproduced in copies or otherwise by any means except as permitted in writing by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Attn: Bible Rights and Permissions, P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, TN 37214-1000.
More by Greg Laurie: http://www.harvest.org/devotional/index.php/5.html