If you believe that God is able to handle the future, then you can submit to His authority, and obey His commandments.

How the early Church prepared for the future
​1. They let God intervene.

Damascus road has become a symbol of God breaking through and turning a situation completely around.

Often, when God steps in, we reject His intervention.

One thing we know for sure is that Jesus Christ is going to return to earth one day.


2. They saw the willingness of God to use unlikely people.

Examine what God is showing you through the unlikely people in your life that will cause you to learn and
grow, and develop and mature to be more like Jesus.

Maybe you are the unlikely person God wants to use.


3. They allowed the power of God to work.

The power that raised Jesus from the dead is the exact same power that allows you to be born again.

Our fears, doubts, and insecurities cause us to fail to experience this power.

The future is bright as long as we keep working at becoming the ideal church.  

1. God's presence should shake you up!
The contrast between life in the world and life in the Church should be so startling to you that you are shaken into reality.

2. God's presence should break you up!
The fact of God in your midst should break you of your own self-sufficiency and belief that you can handle life on your own.

3. God's presence should wake you up!
Do something that will alert you to His presence.
4. God's presence should take you up!
Everything we do in a worship service is really a prayer.


Aspects of prayer
1. Praise
2. Petition
3. Intercession
4. Thanksgiving
5. Confession
The prayer of the Jerusalem church
1. With Praise rather than for Pity
​2. For Power, not Protection

1. “Works” and “Faith” can also be understood as religion and relationship.
Biblical definition of religion: an outward service based on a system of beliefs

religion: man's way of getting to God.
Christianity: God's way of getting to man.

Religion cannot save you from your sinful condition.


2. Christianity is a relationship made possible through faith in Jesus and purely by the grace of our heavenly Father.
Visible actions that stem from our faith in Christ is pure and faultless religion.
If your relationship to Jesus does not involve action, it is a dead faith.


3. The examples of a pure and faultless religion- looking after orphans and widows.
They are representative of a fallen and broken world.

I John 3:17- The love of God which has saved us compels us to reach out to those who are hurting.


4. Being a Christian means being involved in the problems of the world.
Be involved in the world, but keep yourself from being polluted by it.

The only way to do both is in knowing Jesus.
Once you have a relationship with God, then your religion means something.

The true test of integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching you.

What Ananias and Sapphira did was wrong because they lied to God.

The root of lack of integrity is basic idolatry.
a. The reason why anyone would not have integrity is because they are not satisfied with what they have.
b. You think you can get what you want by being dishonest or immoral.

Different kinds of integrity (or lack thereof)
a. moral integrity (God's commandments regarding sex and marriage
b. integrity of word- things you say
c. financial integrity – how you handle money
d. personal integrity – friendships and relationships

Lack of integrity brings death of many kinds.

How to keep from hypocrisy
1. Stop comparing yourself to other people.
a. you will feel jealous and insecure or.....
b. it's easy to justify the sin in your life.

2. Get rid of the personal garbage that pollutes your life.
Identify those things in your life that are contradictory to the ways of God.