Acts 1-4 Meditation

Keeping Prophetic Words

Being in mind of God means to meditation and keep closely to one's heart of the prophecies of God. We see that in Jesus' lives, that he constantly telling His disciples He must do certain things so that the scriptures can be fulfilled. Peter learned the lesson in a hard way. He was trying to divert Jesus' idea of going to the cross resulting discipline from The Lord. Now Peter here as the leaders of the brothers, he told them it is necessary to fulfill the scriptures. God is looking for people who would hold dear to the word that was given to them, whether is bible prophecies or prophetic word given by the Holy Spirit. We are absolutely serious about the prophecies of God holding them until they are fulfilled in our lives. We must meditate upon them and use all our power in the physical world by the direction of the Holy Spirit to make these things happen. This is how Peter puts it:

2 Peter 1:19 We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

I believe this is the mature leader that God is looking for. God is training us today to be faithful to the prophetic messages that was given to us. Peter says, you will do well to pay attention to it. See to it until it comes to fruition. You must not let go even the day is still dark. Even if the place you're at is a dark place where these words have no chance of fulfilling. Everything in your circumstance looks impossible. But as you look to it, the promise will become brighter and brighter just as the sun is dawning, as the morning star is rising, God will cause His prophetic word to come into full fruition. The exhortation here is to be patient and watch and pray. It will surely come to pass, we do not want to miss out. Here's another verse that shows us how serious God care about this matter:

“These are the ones I look on with favor:
    those who are humble and contrite in spirit,
    and who tremble at my word. (Isaiah 66:2b)

You see this is the one God says he will show favor, the one he esteems. This is a huge statement. Another great key to get God's blessings manifested in our lives, is to position ourselves to really make His prophetic words a huge deal in our lives to see to it that they come to pass in our personal and corporate lives. Daniel is another great example in the bible. A man full of wisdom and gave himself fully to study and pray over the prophetic words and destiny over nations. I believe Mike Bickle, Lou Engle, David Demian, and Nita Johnson are also modern day version of these testimonies. God is raising up people of understanding, a company of Issachar who know the times and seasons and can teach others to align to God's will.

The Priority of God - Spirit then Structure

Many times we want to do exactly what the bible teaches, the forms and the structure that it speaks of. We think of keeping the structure is the key to revival and to the move of God, but when we study the book of acts we realize that God is constantly challenge the way we live constantly on the go to change. And the priority of God seems to be Spirit (content) first then come up with the structure. The same thing with our minds. Minds is not evil or bad by itself, It's only bad when we make it first and our spirit second. Mind is the structure the computer that to keep the Spirit's information. It is not to be first to generate stuff on its own, and it is not there to dictate decision. If that be the case many of Spirit suggestion seems like non-sense and we won't act according to it. That's why the bible says the mind is enmity to God, but the mind care about the desires of the Spirit is life and peace. This principle also apply to our walk with God and church government. Should we set up a structure to promote the move of God, if so it become another form of religion and burden. We need the explosion Spirit of God first, the workings of God. Then according to how the Holy Spirit is moving in best we shift to structure to promote and to serve the move of God. The mind is created serve the purposes of the Holy Spirit just as the structure of the church is created to serve the move of Holy Spirit. We find out what God is doing and how to promote it then we build the structure around it and to modify it as time go on.

In Acts 2:42-47 many things are described about the early church, espeically the way they function as a church, which is very different from today's society. They shared their wealth and possessions as a way of advancing the Kingdom of God. They met daily to have constant fellowship and breaking of bread. This is all wonderful, but if we practice them today out of our human minds and trying to produce the same result we will get in trouble. This community is completely birthed by the power of Holy Spirit, it has no human origin in this, we must understand about this. The Kingdom always is for New Wine to come first then the New Wine Skin to hold it, or else the Wine Skin will limit the content of the wine. Think about Jesus' ministry. Did Jesus came to set up the structure of the church first gave the disicples a bunch of rules of how to form the church, then show the move of God and power of the HS. In human thinking it is definitely logical to have great planning about what to do and have structure first then welcome God in to make things moremanageable. But God is asking us to trust Him, not that we don't plan, but to tap in and trust in His design and planning. It is the same purpose of praying in Tongues, God constantly is by passing our minds so His will and power will ber unhinder by men. So this takes the burden off from many of church leaders. What we should focus more as leaders are not how can I build the church to have how many prayer meetings and the way to do cell groups to be healthy, of course all these are important. But we should focus on what God is doing in our church with this congregation. What is the Holy Spirit doing and wanting to do in us? We should build the momentum of the move of God in our mist, until the breakthrough and explosion. Then accroding to it to find out the best sustaining structure to go around it to serve the move of God. And I believe God will also download blueprints and some guidelines for the leaders ahead to know how to handle the situation. Just as Moses receive the blueprints for the Tabernacle and ways of worship and the Law from the mountain, but remember He had an encounter with God's glory first, experiencing the move of God time and time again before the structure came. There comes to a point He needs to gave the task for the elders thereby changing the structure. Same in Book of Acts, when there comes a time that the widows and the poor are so many the apostles are neglecting their devotions to God. Then structure is reformed again accordingly to raise up more people to take their place.

 I believe today's church has spent too much time of planning and thinking about the structure of the church and not spending enough of time to pressing into Spirit for God to move. This is why our churches are mostly boring and dull. Structure limit the wine and hinder the new wine to come forth, people will not receive the life of God they are destined to. But we must make an open space for God to come first then built the house. See the glory and the presence came to dwell in Israel first to lead them to carry them to act on their behalf before God has a temple and house. This also is a very unqiue trait about our God. The temple does not come until David's time, the rest is a tent that is movable adaptable being carried all around. I believe God wants to train us to follow Him in many different ways before He'll build a definite structure to settle. Even when there is a structure it is never competely settled. Beacuse when we get to the New Heavens and New Earth, New Jerusalem came down from Heaven. The move of God is always upgrading, then the house of God will upgrade as well. This is an important lesson for the temple builders, Davids to learn in this day and age.

Jewish Hours of Prayer

Here we find in Acts 3 Peter and John kept the Jewish way of prayer at their ordained prayer time to go into the temple to pray. It is interesting there is so little teaching explaing to us what the prayer hours are, I believe there are nuggets of gold here. Jewish prayer hours given by Priesthood are 3 time periods of each day, now we are talking the blessing cycles again. God given us the Jewish Calendar/Time to show us the original intent of things, in which we will thrive to walk in the ways of God to prosper and to align with Him. So the hours are 9AM, 3PM, Sundown. You see 9AM is right when you begin your work. When you get in your office at 9AM in the morning for a Jew it is their prayer hours. They give their work their day to to seek His face first and to meditate upon His word. To align to God by offering sacrifice of praise and worship. This is once again the Firstfruit principle that God is talking about to us. Then 3PM is at the hour of heat of the labor, now God call us to come to Him to draw strength from Him, to be refreshed and refocused upon HIm to draw creativity and grace from Him. God wants us to constantly align to Him return to HIm and not to depend on our ability to accomplish things. How amazing is our God!! Then at Sundown (Around 6pm), is when we return home starting our family life. Now the first thing when we get home is to relax and to watch TV do recreational things to decompress the day. But God is once again calling us back to His presence to realign. Do you see the principle of Sabbath Rest and Firstfruit here. And by the way for a Jew Sundown is the beginning of a day, so once again God is calling us to give a new day to Him by offering spiritual sacrifice unto Him again. By doing so we are completely relying upon Him and trusting His power and grace to do more than we can ask or think. What an awesome God we serve!

What's amazing is the early Apostles take time out daily to observe their appointment with God, Peter did it here. He took another time of prayer in noon time that's when He receive revelation from Heaven of His next assignment. Do you see how important we need these time of prayers. For the usual Jewish way of praying is about 15 mins plus, so it's not very long, but these moments of short fellowship do position ourselves in a great way of blessings. I believe in times of a day there are also portals in the spirit in which we receive more revelation. Besides Peter and John, John most definitely, when he wrote Revelation He was on the Lord's day so He really understand the Jewish timings dynamics. Daniel the prophet and David also prayed three times a day to meet with the king. It is significant implement some of these routines to see true breakthrough in our lives and our churches. God wants us to be in the Spirit so He can download strategies and give us breakthroughs to walk with Him. Here are for your own information:

Shacharit - 9AM - 3rd Hour Jewish Time

Michchah - 3PM (9th Hour)

Maavir - Sundown 6pm (Beginning of New Day)