Category: Daily Inspirations

Acts 6: 8-10

Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.  Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of Freedmen (as it was called), Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and others of those from Cilicia and Asia, stood up and argued with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.

When the Hellenist complain that their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food, the twelve realize that they cannot effectively teach the word of God and adequately manage to feed the poor (wait on tables). They chose Stephen and six others to be responsible for these tasks so that they could continue to pray and serve the word.

There have been many times in my life when I wished I could speak with such wisdom and Spirit that others could not withstand me, especially now in these days when the world is so frightened and divided. But, the truth is that many times I am only speaking from my own opinions and when others hear me they have different opinions.  But, what if I spoke directly from my heart through the power of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit? 

When I read and study the Word of God, the teachings of Jesus and the disciples, the Psalms and Prophetic writings, I am really preparing myself to bring that wisdom to others.  And so it was with Stephen. His words were not an instant miracle brought on by having the apostles lay hands on him.  He is described as a man full of faith, grace and power prior to his being chosen. 

And so, each day, I pray that I may gain a little more wisdom, a little more faith and a little more grace so that I too may share the love of God, the Word of God and the joy of the resurrection of Jesus Christ because only then will I be speaking from my heart and my soul.

                                                                                    Lois Vanderbok, EfM, Year 1

ACTS 5: 15-16

“As a result of what the apostles were doing sick people were carried out into the streets and placed on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall upon some of them as he passed by.”

After Pentecost when the followers of Jesus were filled with the Holy Spirit, many miracles and wonders were performed among the people by the apostles.  Many healings took place.

When I first read the above passage, it sounded strange to me that people might think that just Peter’s shadow falling on them would have a healing effect!  But then I have seen doctors who can make a patient feel better just by being there and radiating confidence.

It was not that Peter was well educated or particularly talented.  He was a working man just out of jail.  But Peter seemed to be in contact with a source of unlimited vitality or spiritual energy. People sensed that Spirit and for some just being near him in his shadow was uplifting and healing.

Does that spiritual energy emanate from you?   What might open the way for this to be possible?

                                                                              Ann Sieracki, EfM Mentor

Acts 3 – A Miracle and a Message
Acts 2:43 states that “many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles” but does not detail any one specific miracle.  Emphasis is placed on the sharing of goods and possessions, breaking bread together with “glad and generous hearts” and praising God.

Acts 3 opens with the encounter between Peter and John and the lame beggar at the Beautiful Gate of the temple. When asked for alms by the beggar, Peter said first “look at us” and then “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” And he does … jumping, walking, leaping and singing Gods praises.  Peter’s gift was faith and health.  All the witnesses are filled with awe.

Peter preaches to the witnesses (a crowd of about 5,000, Acts 4.4).  He reminds them that they rejected “the Holy and Righteous One” and “killed the Author of Life.”  But he then immediately calls them Friends and asks them to repent so their sins will be wiped out; to listen to the words of Jesus, and to know that by turning away from wicked ways “in your descendants, all the families of the earth will be blessed.”  Peter emphasizes three truths for proclaiming gospel – Exalt the Lord Jesus; confront humans w/their wrongdoing (sins) and the possibility of judgment, and the offer of God’s grace and love to those who repent and believe. 

As a lifelong Christian, I have made the leap of faith and truly believe that Jesus and his apostles, through the hand of God and the Holy Spirit, really did perform the miracles documented in the New Testament.  And that those miracles brought thousands of non- believers to faith.  What will bring people to faith today?

As we ponder the global pandemic and consider all the reasons it may be so wide spreading and deadly, we are also deeply touched by the courage of first responders, all medical professionals and all who must work to bring us food and goods, deliver transport, etc. For me, all those that carry on in big ways and through small random acts of kindness are today’s miracle workers.  The technology that will ultimately (hopefully soon) provide healing therapies and vaccines is a modern miracle.  With the world slowing down, lessons about saving our planet, consuming less and sharing more are being vividly demonstrated daily.  With God’s grace, the love of Jesus, and time for meditation, may many around the globe turn to the Way of Love at this time and stay close to Our Lord when it is over.
And forever sing his praise!

                                                                                         Adele Sadiq, EfM Year 4

ACTS: 2:1-4

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like a rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the houses where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues of fire as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

The Day of Pentecost was a Jewish tradition and celebrated seven weeks after Passover. People gathered to mark the anniversary of the Law given by God to Moses. We know from Acts 1 that the risen Christ told his disciples and close followers not to leave Jerusalem but to wait to receive the Holy Spirit, “the promise of the Father.”

I often ask myself, what must it have been like to be in that room? Terrifying? Exhilarating? Confusing?

When we read scripture, we are often challenged to put ourselves in the picture and circumstances to try to derive personal meaning and growth. For me, this passage leads me to recall a moment of Grace when the Holy Spirit felt especially close.

One vivid experience was a time when I was in an intense business conflict. The opposing person was falsifying documents and lying about some issues that attacked me and my entire department.  With the help of my rector, I prayed for guidance. On the day of a show-down meeting, I faced her and silently prayed. In a moment my neck felt like it was fever-hot and the heat, like a wave,rolled up my neck to my ears and to the top of my head.The hate I felt towards her lifted and dissipated; I was left feeling a great gift of peace. My feeling of hate transformed into one of sympathy for her.

In his book, The Universal Christ, Father Richard Rohrer writes about the pattern of spiritual transformation. He describes the spiritual learning patterns we go through from “order to disorder to reorder.” He writes, “Order is the first stage where everything is basically good, ….we feel a part of what looks normal and deserved.” The disorder stage is when something challenging happens(i.e., a family death, rejection, divorce,life-change).He says, “this stage or what we call from the Adam and Eve story—the fall. It is necessary in some form if any real growth is to occur.” He goes on to tell us that the reorder stage is “enlightenment and the life on the other side of death, the victory on the other side of failure, the joy on the other side of the pains of childbirth. It is an insistence on going through—not under, over, or around. There is no nonstop flight to reorder.”

When the disciples experienced the resurrection and the mighty winds and tongues of fire of the Holy Spirit, they were transformed. There was no stopping them from spreading the Good News (even in different languages). As Rohrer said, they were insistent on going through it—not under, or around their experience: There was no nonstop flight to reorder. They experienced Jesus’ promise that “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17) and how Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:51, “we shall be changed.”

                                                                                          Connie Clark, EfM year 4

Acts 22:19 – 20
And I said, ‘Lord, they themselves know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. And while the blood of your witness Stephen was shed, I myself was standing by, approving and keeping the coats of those who killed him.’

This gut wrenching statement was made by Paul as part of his defense after he was seized following a disturbance in the temple (chapter 21). Paul is explaining to a violent crowd the series of events that happened to him while on his way to Damascus to bind and imprison disciples of Jesus (chapter 9). Paul cites the stoning of Stephen as an example of his former life as an enforcer of Jewish law. Paul goes on to tell of the miracles that brought him to be filled with the Holy Spirit and proclaim Jesus as the Messiah.

I read this statement by Paul over and over. By using the example of the stoning of Stephen, I feel as though Paul is talking about the worst moment of his former life, perhaps the very one that he regrets the most. He uses this reference to the lowest point in his life to contrast the highest point of his life, the moment God removed “the scales from his eyes”. 
I think that we all have things in our life we regret; I certainly do, but none as extreme as standing by and approving the killing of another. What absolute conviction Paul must have had to speak of this horror in order to demonstrate the revelation, forgiveness and purpose of Paul’s new life in Christ. One of the exercise in the EfM program is a spiritual biography, in which we talk about the way God has changed our lives. Many of these biographies tell of the low points of our lives and the ways that God has shown us revelation, forgiveness, and purpose. 

During this difficult and frightening time, perhaps we should all take a moment to reflect and remember the grace and love that God has shown us. Because a reminder of those high points in our lives may help us to look at the world through the promise of God’s love and strength.
                                                                                       Lois Vanderbok, EfM, Year 1

ACTS 23: 3-7
³ Then Paul said to him, “God shall strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” ⁴ Those who stood by said, ”Would you revile God’s high priest?” ⁵ And Paul said, “I did not know brethren that he was the high priest; for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’” ⁶ But when Paul perceived that one part were Sad’ducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees; with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead I am on trial. ⁷ And when Paul said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sad’ducees; and the assembly was divided.

On trial, Paul does many noteworthy things. First, he addresses the Sanhedrin by using the term, “Brethren,” instead of the traditional, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel.” This puts him on equal footing with the court. Second, he challenges the High Priest with his order to have Paul slapped in verses 1-3. In fact, he points out that the High Priest has broken a law by ordering a fellow Israelite to be slapped on the cheek, and further, calls out the Priest as being a “whitewashed wall.” He is referring to the practice of painting the walls of tombs white so that the law-abiding did not accidentally touch a dead body, which is also a law. By saying this, Paul is basically saying to the High Priest that he is acting as if he was above the law. Then Paul recognizes the different beliefs of the Sad’ducess, who did not believe in the hope of the resurrection, and the Pharisees who did.  He uses their divides to help save his life.

In reading and studying this passage, I was struck by how complicated the laws were, and by how easy is was to break one in an effort to enforce another. What also struck me were the strong divides of the Sad’ducees and the Pharisees. 

But we know that Jesus brought a replacement of these old laws. In a recent message to the Church, Bishop Curry quotes Jesus’ replacement of those laws with the two commandments: “Love the Lord God with all your heart and soul, all your mind, all your strength” and “you should love your neighbor as yourself.” He further says, “Jesus makes it abundantly clear that the way of unselfish sacrificial love that seeks the good and the well being of others, as well as yourself, that love, is the rubric of Christian life.” In Father Mark’s sermon on Good Shepherd Sunday, he challenged us to “remember to be people of hope, a people who are clued Into Jesus’ desire that we live the abundant life, Jesus’ desire that we have life abundant all around us.”

Although we were handed this wonderful Grace, have Christians repeated the divisions of the believers that came before them? With these two laws to follow, have we gone off course of the core of Christianity in our conversations with each other, and with those who have not yet found the Gift? In a time when we can’t be together physically, how can we be more united as a church and with the entire Christian community? What binds us all together and how can we individually become the “people of hope” to each other and to those who have yet to find God’s Love?              
                                                                              Tara Lightner, EfM, Year 1