ACTS– The Start of something good! Chapter 15– A Grace-shaped church! (Tony)

“You can’t be saved unless…” was the cry from the religious com-munity! (15v1) In this case it was “unless... you are circumcised and obey the law of Moses” (v5)! The Church had been started, established, grown in numbers and courage, in the face of fierce persecution… but now they were hit with something even worse than persecution… religious laws!

“The problem was that some of the converts had brought their previous beliefs with them” (NIV Study Bible). They were trying to mix these beliefs with salva-tion through Jesus. This is a very dangerous thing to do, because old reli-gious beliefs (Doing things to get God’s approval) and superstitions (eg astrology, touching wood, unlucky numbers etc) can put fear into our lives and strangle the life out of our relationship with Jesus, severely limiting how far we can go in our walk with Him.

When we come to Jesus, he would have us leave everything else (the old life) at the cross and become new creations in him (2 Cor 5v17). That is what being “born again” (John 3v3) means. Peter put it very nicely in v10, “don’t put a load on their necks that we couldn’t bear. NO, we be-lieve it is through grace* we are saved” (see also Matt 11v28,29; Gal 5v1, Eph 2v8,9 ) In v19 James says that we shouldn’t “make it difficult for people to be saved.” Very true, Salva-tion is and will always be ONE prayer away

The Final decision of the early Church was NOT to burden the new converts, but to put a few common sense guidelines in place, based on the community that they were part of (v29), where sexual immorality and idolatry played a big part. REMEMBER… With Jesus, it’s salvation that works, not salvation by works! (*Grace: the unconditional love of God, shown to us through his son Jesus)

GRACE-ALERT CHECKLIST Are you affected by any of these? 1. Think God will only love me if... 2. Easily feel condemned/ guilty 3. Think superstitiously Then pray the prayer below...

PRAYER: “Father God, forgive me for trusting in what I do, rather than trusting in what you did on the cross. I choose to re-ceive your unconditional love for me today.” AMEN & THANK YOU!