Bible Study - The Early Church

What does your church look like? Not like the outside part, how would you describe what happens between you and the rest of the congregation when you meet? How does that compare with the early church? Well, in Acts 2:42-47, God gives us a description of the early church. "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Okay, I’m just going to take a little stop here. They DEVOTED themselves to all those things! The dictionary.com definition of the word “devoted” is “to give up or appropriate to or concentrate on a particular pursuit, occupation, purpose, cause, etc.: to devote one's time to reading.” That means like COMPLETELY deciding that those things are the sole purpose in your life. “ Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.” Well, that’s cool! WONDERS and SIGNS! I want to perform wonders and signs! I think that this sort of comes because of the last point. When you completely devote yourself to prayer (which is a conversation with God), it is only natural that you will become more like him! “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” Okay… I know what you are thinking. That doesn’t really sound that appealing. I don’t want to sell my stuff! Much less so I can give the money to some random person! BUT it also says that all  the believers had everything in common, that means you really wouldn't have to give a bunch to help one person! And also, when you came to a rough patch, everyone would be ready to help you out. “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.” Every. Day. Isn’t that a bit much? Isn’t Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights enough? Well, not to them. They were so hungry that they continued to meet together EVERY DAY! While we may not be able to attend church every day, it is still very important that we continually meet with people who will encourage our faith. “They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Isn’t that nice! I think a lot of times we fail to replicate this same principles that they have in this verse, and we are disappointed by what our churches look like. However, I am convinced that God will give us this same church experience. All we have to do is devote ourselves to him, and ask for it.