G- “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you then these requirements: You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or eating the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. If you do this you will do well.” Acts 15:28,29

R- I think that as Christians we can often times put too much on the plate of new believers. we expect them to cut off every tie with their old sinful life and become everything God wants for them overnight. Well thats just not practical. The apostles faced this same dilemma in the new church. they had a bunch of new gentile converts and some of the Jews wanted then to adhere to Jewish law. I think that the church sometimes expects that of new believers and we end up pushing them away. We need to understand that they are new persons in Christ but that turning away from their old lifestyles takes time. The Apostles gave four things that I think we need to encourage in new believers

1. Do not  eat meat sacrificed to Idols(Maintaining Spiritual Purity)-obviously this keeps with the first commandment
2. Abstain from sexual immorality(Maintain Physical Purity)- keep your body pure
3. Do no consume blood(Maintain Emotional Purity)- blood was/is the thing that holds life. the heart was the center for the blood and our emotions
4. Do not eat meat from strangled Animals(Maintain Cultural Purity)- this was a big deal to the Jewish culture in the day and in following this new Christians were able to keep peace with the Jews and not create a barrier for more people to come to Christ.

These are the 4 things that we need  to be encouraging new Christians in, without expecting them to just up and change everything in their lives overnight.

O-Lord help me not only to encourage new believers to follow these four things, but also to follow them myself. Help me to give grace to those who accept you and to help them in becoming more mature in You, even as I strive daily in this myself.

W- One way I can put this into practice is to start a study for new believer in my church, helping them along, in their new faith.

THink about it!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 10:38 am and is filed under Bible, Daily Reading, Devotional, Evangelism, GROWth, Insight, New Believers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.