May 18 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Devotional

Members of the church of Christ spend much time staring at each other. When they gather for worship, many people cannot see Christ because they see too much of each other. And in many conversations of Christian people, the talk is focused on preachers and other leaders as a safe substitute for a focus on Christ. People look too much at each other. We would benefit greatly from more upward focus.

When Peter said to the man who was lame, "Look at us!" it was to fix his attention on the fact that he and John were only men—and poor men at that. They wanted him to understand that if he were helped, it was not because Peter and John were there but because the Lord was living.

When the crowd had gathered, eager for a sensational miracle, Peter said they were staring at the wrong people. "Why do you stare at us?" The person who was really at work there was the same one they had denied before Pontius Pilate (v. 13). This healing was nothing more than the ongoing ministry of the living Jesus.

"Acts of the Apostles" is a poor title for a book that describes what the Lord Jesus did from the throne. Acts is about Jesus, just as Luke's first book is a record of what Jesus did before he ascended to the throne. So please don't read the book of Acts thinking, "I wish we had such heroes in the church." Instead, think, "This is the kind of Lord we have in the church."

There are at least two ways of looking at the church. The usual way is the wrong way. It takes faith to see how "the Son of God, through his Spirit and Word ... gathers, protects, and preserves for himself a community chosen for eternal life" (Heidelberg Catechism, Answer 54).

If our eyes are wide open to what the Lord is doing, we join the former man who was lame in his praises to God. But if we merely stare at each other, we form a society as good and as bad as any other.

REFLECTIONS

What kinds of things happen at church that might tempt us to look more at people than at Jesus?

Andrew Kuyvenhoven's Daylight, a modern devotional classic, was originally published by Paideia Press in 1977. This updated edition is copyright 2009 by Faith Alive Christian Resources. You can order a copy of this revised version of the book directly from the publisher.

A man of many accomplishments, Andrew Kuyvenhoven is probably best known for his contributions to Today (formerly The Family Altar), a widely-used monthly devotional booklet associated with the Back to God Hour. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations for this updated edition of Daylight are from the Holy Bible: Today's New International Version copyright 2001, 2005 by the International Bible Society.