and all who believed were together and had all things in common. [acts 2:44]
in our kitchen we have a buffet with two coffee pots and a keurig on top. above the buffet are a couple floating shelves. the bottom shelf has a basket of k-cups and probably 25 coffee mugs on it.
no one that lives in our house drinks coffee.
we have all of that stuff because we host lot family (small group) at our house every sunday. at least we do when groups of people are able to gather. and since we eat breakfast when we gather, pretty much everyone drinks coffee. we’ve decided our house is for hospitality. for hosting. for welcoming people in. ultimately we desire our home to be used to glorify God and make much of Jesus. we want that for everything, for every area of our lives.
and that is what was unifying to the early church. they had all things in common because they desired to bring glory to Jesus in everything. so their stuff, their gifts, their talents – they desired to use all of it to glorify God. and they rallied around that. it can be easy to doubt each other, to question each others motives, to be jealous of another persons giftings. but when the desire of your heart is to point to Jesus with everything, you will rejoice when other people are pointing to Jesus also.
spend some time today asking God to search your heart. ask him to reveal areas in your life you desire to build your own kingdom instead of point to his. then ask him to reveal areas where you bring division to the church by questioning the motives of others without hearing them out or where you are jealous of others giftings. repent of these things before God and, if necessary, repent of these things to your brothers and sisters.
together, let’s point the world to Jesus.
~ keith kozlowski