10 days in the New Testament: Day 1

I want to study my Bible deeply and get used to using commentaries and understand the importance of every verse. So in my Bible, there's a Bible plan called "50 days in the New Testament". I want to get through it all, but I might not be consistent because I can’t be committed to this everyday as school is getting more stressful.
(using NCV, similar to NIV)
Day 1

Acts 1:1-11
Written by: Luke
When: Around A.D. 63
Theme: The First Christian Church

In the first verse, he is addressing Theophilius. Who is he? Well I did some research and looked at different commentaries and they say that no one knows who he is but his name means "Friend of God". And Luke goes on after addressing him by saying, "The first book I wrote was about everything Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up into heaven." So Luke is continuing his writing from where he left off in the book of Luke. As he goes on, writing to this man, he talks about what happened during the ascension of Christ into Heaven. If we go back to Luke, he only has 4 verses about Jesus going back to Heaven and in Acts, he has 11. He ends Luke with this, "Jesus led his followers as far as Bethany, and he raised his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he was separated from them and was carried into heaven. They worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem very happy. They stayed in the temple all the time praising God." (Luke 24:50-53) 
No details were given here. From this reading, we can draw out these questions:

• What was the blessing?
• How was Jesus carried into heaven?
• Why did they worship after seeing Jesus get taken away from them?

I think that Luke starts out Acts the way he does so that he could address all these questions that we drew out from the end of Luke. So let's turn back to Acts and find the answers.

What was the blessing? 

Question found in Luke 24:50

Answer found in Acts 1:8

(NKJV) this is the Lord Jesus speaking "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me. (or in the NU-text it reads, My witnesses) in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

So the blessing was that they will receive some power, not revealed yet, when the Holy Spirit comes upon them. So when will the Holy Spirit come upon them?

In Acts 2 we can find the answer. Let's take a look:

Acts 2:1-4

When the day of the Pentecost had fully come,

they were all with one accord in one place. 

It says that the Holy Spirit had come upon them on the Day of the Pentecost.
So the Disciples had been waiting quite a while for the Holy Spirit to come and the Spirit eventually comes. Let's continue on with the passage in Acts:

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven,

as of a rushing mighty wind,

and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

Then there appeared to them divided tongues,

as of fire,

and one sat upon each of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak

with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

This goes into depth of the blessing that they received. It said that they received spiritual gifts. The gift of speaking in tongues. Paul goes on later in one of the Epistles talking about how the gift of "Speaking in Tongues" is one of the greatest gifts you could receive from the Spirit. So the disciples received a great gift. 

Let's go to the second question:

How was Jesus carried to heaven?

Question found in Luke 24:51

Answer found in Acts 1:9

Now when He had spoken those things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.

He was taken up, but it doesn't mention how. It does mention that a cloud received the Lord.  

Why would a cloud be sent to take the Lord? 

Well the "Acts of the Apostles" commentary says that it may have been designed to answer a main purpose:

To make the ascension of the Lord more distinctly visible to others not just the disciples so that there may be a recorded day in the Jewish history in which the skies were dark and there was a dark and luminous cloud on that specific day. Although it did not say that it was dark or luminous, we can assume that it was. For if the cloud was small and white, like all the others, there wouldn't be any significance to it. No one would know about any unusual events that had happened on this very special day in Biblical history. God would not put a cloud in the picture unless it had some significance. Luke could've pointed out any other random clouds but he pointed out this specific cloud. It must've been very unusual or unique for him to add it in the passage. 

But in this other commentary that I found (http://www.biblecentre.org/commentaries/fbh_48_acts.htm),

it references us back to Luke 9:34:

While he was saying this (speaking of Peter),

a cloud came and overshadowed them;

and they were fearful as they entered the cloud.

And a voice came out of the cloud saying,

"This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!"

So this commentary says that doubtless, this was the same cloud. This picture of God's voice in the cloud, and we can know that it is God because Luke had capitalized "My", is similar to that of the burning bush in the Old Testament. I think by comparing these two commentaries, that they are both correct. I think that the Spirit of God had come down in the form of a cloud to receive His Son. And the reason why He used a cloud to represent Him is for the reason explained in the commentary above and because of Luke 9:34. Now I am not sure that what I had said is right, so don't take what I say as facts, I am still learning and growing in the Lord. 

Lets look at the last question:

Why did they worship after seeing Jesus get taken away from them?

Question found in Luke 24:52-53

Answer found in Acts 1:10-11

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven."

Now I think that the reason for their rejoicing is their eagerness for their friend and saviour's return. This news had brought joy and hope into their hearts. Little did they know that the "angels" which I think the men were, were referencing Christ's second coming as talked about in Revelation, but that is a whole different topic. They would be already in heaven before the Son of Man comes again. But I think that it was relief that washed over them for it was not the end. Their friend would return someday. 

This is the end of Day 1. It was very long. I don't think I'll be doing another long one, but I do hope that I could stay committed to this plan. 

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Why Do I Blog?

Faithful Bloggers wanted to do a group blogging project so I've decided to take part in my very first one(i didn't even know they did these...). So I want to take part in this one and they asked:

Why Do You Blog?

Well my purpose for starting my blog was something totally different than what it is used for now. I had a vision of starting a group of bloggers who will provide evidence and proof that Jesus is really the Christ and to show others the actual truth. 

Here was my first post called "Now's The Time":

I wanted to create a christian group to help me and send in evidence from the bible to prove to others that the Word of God is True. also to prove that Jesus is the Son Of God and the Messiah that the Jews are still waiting for and that he has already come and is coming again. Even though I'm only 13, ever since I was little i have always wanted to do this and i have prayed for years for God to give me the courage and wisdom to do this. And here i am. and i thank him now for this.

Obviously, my blog did not end up how I wanted it to, rather it ended up quite well. I didn't really understand blogging all that much before but now, my blog's sole purpose is to walk through life with other Christians and find out how God wants us to live our lives so that we can be the reflection of His Son.

My blog is kind of like my diary, I could never keep a diary when I was younger, even to this day! I wouldn't make it past the first week and the entries would be years apart, but with my blog, I find that I could stay a bit constant and blog once in a while.

I blog because God put it upon my heart to. If you really want to go far back, I wanted to be a child missionary and travel the world preaching to others at the age of 12, but it was very unrealistic for me. I just couldn't sit still and not do anything with the salvation that God has given me. So I was kind of stubborn when I prayed and prayed and prayed about what was on my heart. I knew that I wanted to do that and nothing else. My sister had already started a blog on which she was writing a Christian story (the blog is called Congaisa) and she occasionally asked me to read her new posts. So when I was reading her post a few days later, God put it upon my heart to start a blog and do my "mission" work on it. I called it "Lost Sheep, Get The Evidence", you can tell that I have changed the name since, for the road God took me on was different than the road I was hoping to travel on. I still don't know for sure what God wanted the main purpose of my blog to be, but it definitely wasn't what I had in mind before. All I want is for him to use me through it and he has. And through it, I have grown in the Lord and uncovered new mysteries about him that I never had before.

My blog is something that keeps me connected to my Brothers and Sisters through my communication on it, and it helps me understand God more and how he wants me to live (the Bible does most of that work, of course). It encourages me to read his Word often and he speaks through me on it. Now, I don't know where he'll take me with it but I know it's worth the patience and wait.

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peace given in the worst of times

Tomorrow, I'll be going to a funeral, for the death of the daughter of my piano teacher. She's the most precious thing, such a little princess. Only 6 months old. When I heard this news, I just balled. My piano teacher is the sweetest woman and she always has such peace and patience especially when I don't do my piano homework. But this was the last thing I would ever think could happen. I thought, "she doesn't deserve this", but we all deserve death but God gave us life because of his great mercy. And what God decided to do with this precious life after he gave her life, was to call her back home. Maybe he missed her too much. ;) ahaha but today, I went to the visitation at the funeral home and I saw her lying in her little casket and she looked like a doll, I couldn't help myself I started crying. I needed peace in my heart even though I wasn't the parent of this little soul. I couldn't look into my teacher's eyes or her husband's, I didn't want to cry even more in front of them. That was probably the last thing they wanted. But what took me by surprise was how calm they were. There seemed to be peace within their hearts. That's the amazing thing about our Lord. He offers peace when you most need it, when it seems nearly impossible to have. And the only thing my piano teacher said to me before I balled again was, "I wish you could've seen her more often." I had never got to see her once, and my family had. So she had promised me in the second week of January that she was going to bring her in for one of the lessons. But the day never came, and it never will. The thought just made me cry even more, I really needed strength. I felt silly because I felt like I was struggling more with keeping myself together and strong than they were. Then one of those awesome moments where God puts that random verse in your mind happened. (ps. I wanted to put that verse on their card, but it was too late)

Colossians 1:11

God will strengthen you with his own

great power so that you will 

not give up when troubles come,

but you will be patient.

My teacher and her husband sure had that verse down because they were very patient and seemed like they had strength provided by God so that they could keep strong. And I think I need some of what they have because I am just breaking down. The thing I love though, is how God designed us. He designed us with feelings for one another, we may not be close to a person, but when they're hurting, we hurt too. We don't have to be identical twins to feel each other. We know how depressing death is and how it could affect one's life. We know that many people's heart were dear to the dead's. Sometimes though, we might need help ourselves, and I'm not just talking about girls (my brother couldn't hold himself either and he's a strong person, we had to leave because he couldn't bear to see her lying there). We sometimes look for things to help us through our sadness like food or friends or music. But there isn't always assurance that it will keep you strong. One thing is sure though. That is the Bible. We could relate to it one way or another no matter what our problems are. In this situation, my teacher, her family and her husband and his family, can relate to David. His son was very ill and was going to die, so he grieved and prayed until the day came when his son was called home. Then David did something remarkable, he got up, cleaned himself and worshiped the Lord then ate for he fasted while the child was alive. Everyone was wondering why he wasn't grieving because of his son's death. He said that what was done is done, he can't do anything about it. But while his son was alive, there was still hope that he could become well. He also said that he will see him one day and will be reunited with him. Just like how all those dear to this precious girl will be reunited with her again one day. So all we could do now is clean ourselves and look towards that day when we shall see her again. My teacher and her family will be in my prayers and thoughts, and I am also motivated to work harder on my piano so I don't give her a hard time with it anymore. She has really encouraged me in the 5 years she's been working with me and she has set great goals for me and so far we have accomplished them and I want to continue to accomplish them for I don't want to let her down. This little girl will always be in my heart and she'll always remind me to stay strong and patient when trials come. I just pray for their peace to continue through the funeral ceremony. 

This post I think really gets the idea about strength in devastating times.

(click on the sentence above to get to it)

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