Be With Me: 7 Minutes of Biblical Wonder

Imagine having a job that if you fail in it for a single day, you would be eager to take a sword and stick it into your own body so violently that you would kill yourself. Where do you find a job like that? Try being a jailer for the Romans.  If you lose any prisoners overnight, you are certain to die a death so horrible at the hands of the Romans, that you'd be willing to fall on your sword instantly to avoid that certain, horrible, definitive fate.

How about if ALL the prisoners get free and then use their liberty not to escape, but to save YOUR LIFE? This would certainly get your attention.  You'd consider your fear of the Romans to consider what makes these previous prisoners tick.  You'd maybe trade your fear of the Romans for the fear of God.  

We cannot sugar-coat this story.  Life and death are at stake.  Everybody is brave today.  Paul and co. are brave by worshipping in bad circumstances; the other prisoners are brave by STAYING after getting their freedom; the jailer is brave by NOT killing himself right away.  Please listen for 7 minutes to this dramatic history.  Subscribe at bewithme.us and bewithme.us@gmail. Apple podcasts, Spotify, instagram linked-in, etc.

Listen 7 minutes and hear an exciting story of opposition from both ANOTHER world, as well as THIS world.

Paul encounters spiritual opposition from the demonic world and deals with it.  Then he encounters FINANCIAL opposition from this world and IT deals with HIM.  He gets beaten with rods, specifically designed, planned, prepared, and carried around just for this purpose.  Bare skin.  Nice detail if you are getting beaten with MANY blows.

Don't be surprised about opposition from the "gods" of another world, and don't be surprised about opposition from the "gods" of this world.  Please share, like, retweet, and subscribe at bewithme.us or write at [email protected].

We meet a woman who goes ALL IN for the Lord.  That is, she votes with her all.  She votes with all she has.  She votes with everything precious to her. She votes with her PURPLE.

The purple comes from the mucus of the hypobracial gland of the murex shellfish.  Each little mollusk could deliver a speck of dye.  1000's of them would be required for a gram and it was very expensive.  The dye was 10x as valuable as gold.  A single cloak dyed with purple could sell for the equivalent of 10 years of labor. The dye was colorfast, so once purple it stayed purple. She probably had a production facility.  She probably was a woman of some means.  She probably was an excellent saleswoman.  

She is the first convert in all of Europe.  It is geographically epic.  It is personally epic as she comes to faith, and faith comes to her.  It is spiritually epic, that the kindness of God has come. 

It all hits the fan just after this.  Christians are beaten and arrested.  She stands true with all she has through it all.  She votes with her PURPLE.  Please vote with your attention by subscribing at bewithme.us or Apple podcast.  Then vote with your Purple by sharing and risking like our purple friend LYDIA.   

The phrase that unmoored me a bit is "The Spirit of Jesus" that's used in Acts 16:7
Then I was unmoored by a Person
Then I was unmoored by a God of Trinity
Then I was moored by the phrase
Then I was moored by the Person
Then I was moored by a God of Trinity.

What if God has given me everything I need of Him?  What if He is a God of relationship and intimacy who wants to be known, so He made Himself NEAR?  What if this God now dwells with mankind, or specifically just this man?

Do I "only" have the Holy Spirit? Or do I have the "Spirit of Jesus" and the "Spirit of God" as well? Listen 7 minutes to see how I have ENOUGH.

Either the phrase "the Spirit of Jesus" or the Person of "the Spirit of Jesus" has disturbed the soul of your podcaster.  (Yikes, do I really want a podcaster who gets unmoored at a little turn-of-phrase from the Bible?)  I sure hope you do.  He put that in the Bible for a reason.  I think He wants us to pause here and consider what He is trying to tell us about the Trinity.  This is God trying to tell us who He is.  ie: It sounds important to me.  We should probably first listen and understand.

But wait there's more!  Knowing about the "Spirit of Jesus" is one thing.  He also now indwells the believer.  If so, then the Holy Spirit indwells me.  Some commentators say the Holy Spirit = the Spirit of Jesus.  If that is true, then the Spirit of Jesus lives inside of your humble podcaster.  No wonder he is disturbed.  Today, trying to understand the "Spirit of Jesus" is a bit of a quest to understand this spiritual DNA that is onboard your podcaster. 

Let's explore "the Spirit of Jesus" together.  If you figure it out, subscribe at bewithme.us or Apple podcasts. Come back tomorrow for another crack at this too.

Vast amounts of Asia real-estate is covered.  Over most of it, the Holy Spirit says NO.  Don't go east.  Don't go south.  Go west for a while until you cannot go any further.  Then what?  Wait for it: a vision of a Macedonian man begging for help.  

There is a great commitment here on Paul, Silas, Timothy and now Luke's part.
There is a great commitment here on the Lord's part too.  He wants His good news to go from Asia to somewhere else.  If you are a non-asian person, you should take great interest in what happens next. 

The Lord wants to be known.  He wants to be understood.  He wants to be introduced.  Just not where they are.  He wants to now spread the gospel to the whole world.  A new message for an old continent.  You are probably enjoying the distant fruit of the action of our passage today.  Please share this email; this podcast with someone from a different continent.  Why should Paul be the only one to have this kind of fun?  bewithme.us.

Timothy makes a serious, painful, anatomically-altering decision in the opening verses of Acts 16.  Of great interest, the whole of Acts 15 was about this very topic.  

The question was, "Do you need to be circumcised to be saved?"  After much debate, opposition, and correction, the answer was a resounding NO.  Commissions were sent.  Letters were written.  No No No.  We cannot burden new believers with a law not one human was able to keep.  Nobody ever again needs to do the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament again.  Never.  Never again.  Things are new.  Never. Whew!

Turn the page, and Timothy gets circumcised at Pauls direction.  WHAT?!!?!?!?!? Why would you do such a thing?  Because of my righteousness before God? no.  Earn salvation? no.  For me? no.
Love for another builds up
Don't put a stumbling block of faith in front of another weaker potential brother
Don't destroy someone Christ died for
Bear with the failings and bad theology of a weaker brother
Don't major on the minors--all this from 1 Cor 8.  The rest is up to you to share with your favorite weaker brother. Bewithme.us Apple podcasts. Spotify. Google podcasts.

Today we look at the worst thing in the Bible about Paul and Barnabas.  (Yes, I know that Paul probably killed people.) It is so bad, we have to wonder why God put this in the Bible for us.  It is a full-dose of human reality today. Frankly, I am disappointed in them. (Probably some day they will have a chance to be disappointed in me as they learn the record of my life, but that is for another day)

The new church has some disagreements.  The Holy Spirit is supposed to be working in people to come to agreement; to unity; to be able to say, "It seems best to the Holy Spirit and us that...".  That doesn't happen.  There is a sharp disagreement that results in separation of beloved friends.  These guys have been through the fire together...a literal stoning.  They have been friends and ministry partners FOR YEARS.  This conflict SEPARATES them.  I do not think it was "the Lord's will."

We've got 7 minutes to learn what God may have for us in the worst story about two of the best guys in the Bible.  Once you learn it, share it, like it and subscribe to it at bewithme.us or write at [email protected]

How do you make a decision when God is "silent?" How can I find the will of God when His voice seems non-existent?  

The church in Jerusalem experiences this in our passage today.  They make a big decision, a soul-impacting decision, in the absence of any clear "writing on the wall". 

The book of Acts is fun because there are many examples of the clear will of God: spiritual dice early on, then visions, dreams, audible voices, appearances, etc...but not here.  Here they discern, they think, they pray, they walk with the Spirit, they talk to wise thought leaders, they talk with the church, they are humble, and they aim for joy.  They find that God may be literally SILENT, but He is not silent in the process.

You have heard many phrases for the concept we are discussing in these 7 minutes: I decided=I discerned=I felt called to=the Lord laid it on my heart=God told me=I thought. These are all EXACTLY the same thing (unless you get an angel.)  Listen.  This one is fun.  Share this on Facebook; Instagram. Retweet on Twitter. Like and promote, for you may help someone make a better decision when God is not giving much of an audible voice. BeWithMe.US

Five things strike me today:
1. The humanity of humans.  They get some critical theology wrong despite the indwelling Holy Spirit for well more than a decade.
2. Awe. God is taking a people for His name.  God with us.  This concept always gets me.
3. Cooperative Sovereignty. Yes He is taking and calling a people to His name. Yes, He tells us to turn to God.
4. Representation.  His NAME represents His CHARACTER. After we are a part of the called people, then Our CHARACTER represents His NAME out in the world. Yikes.
5. Trouble caused by people.  We can cause trouble and unsettle minds around us, or we can bear burdens and lighten loads.  It is a call to be part of the blessing that is being part of the people for His name.

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