WEEK 9, Day 1, Monday, 22 February 2021

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Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Monday, 22 February 21:

Acts 13:1 – “Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.”

It is truly an amazing thing and quite a testimony when a diverse congregation has true unity in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit and works together to spread the Gospel to all nations. Consider this unlikely team of leaders God put together for His glory in Antioch. Not only was this group ethnically, racially, and economically diverse, but one of them (Manaen) had grown up as a friend of Herod Antipater who beheaded John the Baptist and conspired against Jesus. And another among this group of church leaders had spent a portion of his life persecuting Christians (Saul). Who would have imagined that God would use the likes of these to spread the Gospel as a team?

Don’t be surprised if God teams you up with an unlikely crew glorify Him and to spread the Gospel in ways you had never planned or imagined. Be ready and faithful with the opportunity. “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption from God so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)

“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 22 Feb 21: Pray the God will help you see people for who they are to be in Christ rather than who they are right now, who they once were, or how the world might view them. Pray that God will help you eliminate partiality in how you treat others. Ask God to show you with whom He might want you to interact, who you might have been neglecting due to preconceived notions or hidden biases. Glorify God by showing university (unity in diversity) in Christ – “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:22, 23)