Love Your Neighbor

July 07, 2014 Monday Message:

“They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” Acts 2:45 NIV

On the day of Pentecost, Jerusalem was filled with visitors, Jews who came to celebrate Shavuot, God giving the Torah through His servant Moses on Mt. Sinai.

As you may recall, at the great altar call that day, 3,000 came forward to become members of “The Way.” They were baptized and thus became card-carrying members of the Jesus Community. But everyone soon realized that since many of these people were out-of-towners, they had no place to stay and no source of income. If these new Christians were to survive, they would all have to share.

This isn’t like Communism. No one forced the believers to share, and there was no set amount of benefit. Instead, each received according to his need. And there’s really no further mention of it. My guess is that most of the new Christians either found employment or re-located their enterprise to the Jerusalem area. This short-term solution solved a short-term problem.

The core believers in this new church realized that Jesus was much more important to them than their possessions.

Jesus should be ahead of possessions in all our lives.

Norton Lawellin

Jesus in the City Fellowship (JICF) meets every Sunday, at 10:30am, in the North end (gym) of the Oliver Ministry Building, 2647 Bloomington Ave., Minneapolis. This week, Rev. Van Dickerson preaches “Freedom in Christ” pt. 3.