ON BECOMING MULTIPLIERS

Today’s Reading: Acts 5-6

Click scripture link to read online or HERE to listen online (then click the symbol of the audio speaker above the scripture portion on the right-hand side).

Saint Stephen’s Gate on the northeast side of the Old City walls of Jerusalem. We walked through this gate just last Tuesday. The first Christian to have his earthly life taken from him for Jesus’ sake was the Deacon, Stephen. What an amazing example of faith and courage! Just before he died he exclaimed that he saw the heavens opened and Jesus standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56b – tomorrows reading).

Key Verse: Acts 5:41, 6:7

So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name…Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.

“Believers were increasingly added” (5:14). “You have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine” (5:28). “The number of disciples was multiplying” (6:1). “The disciples multiplied greatly” (6:7). Here is a theme repeated over and over. This is the way God intends His Church to grow. We should ask ourselves the question, “Are we seeing growth in our Churches?” Here we find the growth came because new believers were added. There are many local churches, but only one Church. Transferring believers from one congregation to another does not constitute growth for the whole Church. The gate pictured above is the traditional site where Stephen was stoned to death. We can expect strong opposition when large numbers are being converted to Christ. We may want to take our spiritual temperature. If we are content to remain as a handful of believers who just bless each other in a local church, we may be almost dead and not know it.

PRAYER FOR TODAY:

Lord Jesus, please grant me the great privilege of bringing new people to You today. May I never be content with just maintaining the numbers of believers as it is presently. Show me in a heart-wrenching way that people are lost eternally without You. Give me a passion to win souls to Yourself and to eternal life. In Jesus’ Name, Amen!

100 PERSONAL WORDS:

As a teen, I read “Passion for Souls,” a book by Oswald J. Smith. I was never content after that to lavish the blessings of Christ on myself, forgetting about lost people. I felt that I was a most selfish person if I would keep the Good News of Jesus and eternal life to myself. Sharing Christ became an absolute essential. If that was not happening in my personal contacts and eventually in the churches I pastored, I became desperate in my prayers, arising earlier and earlier in the mornings to pray. I knew that I could not do this on my own, and that the power of God came upon me directly in proportion to the way I prayed in my private times with God. If you should ever read the biographical sketch of David Mainse on the internet, please read between the lines and know that everything of eternal value that may be there has been born and has thrived out of a “passion for souls.”

Yours to help us become believers like those in today’s reading,

David

P.S. I received an e-mail from our CEO, Lorna Deck, in which she told me of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Staff Chapel this past Thursday. Chapel begins at 11:30 and ends at 12 noon. Staff were still at the altar until 1:30 p.m. Many were filled with the Holy Spirit. God is doing a great and new work at Crossroads/100 Huntley Street!!!!! I’m sure you’ll see the evidence of this when you watch the 100 Huntley Street telecast on YES TV and Global. You can also watch online as I did during my stays in hospital this year (click here).