Daily Devotional: Twenty-Ninth Chapter of Acts

"I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." — Joshua 1:9 NRSVUE

The Book of Acts in the Bible ends with chapter 28. But the Church has been busy writing the 29th chapter for the past two millennium. We’ve written it with our hospitals and children’s homes, with our schools and food pantries. With the thousands of bright, eager believers who have gone into all the world to share the Gospel.

The “verses” we have penned come from a variety of sources:

From a Roman citizen, who witnessed the love and faith of the Christians in the Colosseum, and wrote the now famous phrase, “…my, don’t they love one another!”

From an ex-slave trader who found grace and wrote the immortal words, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

From a German Pastor who stood against Hitler and Darkness, summing up the Cost of Discipleship with the words, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” He was later murdered by order of the Nazi government.

From a Wheaton college student, who, late one night while pouring over Greek studies and noted in his journal, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Seven years later he was martyred.

We fail, we fall down, and sometimes are struck down. We fight insane battles with each other. But we’re still here.

We are the Church.

We meet and pray and build and love and never give up.

Have faith. It all comes right.

The Rev. Dr. Michael Sanders has books of devotions available locally at Kens Village Market in Indian River.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Daily Devotional: Twenty-Ninth Chapter of Acts