CORE DEVOTIONS
At Grace City Church, we long to be a community of believers, who share our lives and resources with one another, instead of merely participating in church programs. We believe that we can learn best from the example of the early Church, as found in the book of Acts. The following Core Devotions are some of the key practices found in the early Church.
1. Loving God and Loving Others
In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus says that the first and greatest command is that we are to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our mind. However, He didn’t stop there. He said the second was just like it: To love our neighbor as ourselves. In other words, the two are inseparable. We display our love for God in how we love others. We see this example in the early Church, as they were completely sold out in love with God, which was evident in their devotion to one another.
2. Scriptures
In Acts 2:42, we are told that the early Church devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching. The Apostles taught the truth about Jesus Christ – the Gospel. They taught about the way in which He fulfilled the Old Testament Scriptures, in order to bring people to salvation through His sacrificial death on the cross and His resurrection. These teachings are revealed to us in the New Testament. The Scriptures reveal to us who God is, what His plan is for the world, and what He requires and expects from us in our relationship to Him and others.
3. Community
We also see in Acts 2:42-46 that the early Church was devoted to fellowship, they met regularly in each others’ homes and broke bread. They met together daily for worship and shared what they had with one another. Again in Acts 4:32, we’re told that they were of one heart and mind. In other words, these weren’t a people who gathered once a week and patted each other on the backs. They did life together, completely devoted to one another.
4. Prayer
The early church consistently operated under the power and leading of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus promised to those who would pray boldly, shamelessly and persistently (Luke 11:1-13). Thus, they devoted themselves to prayer (Acts 2:42). And we can learn from their example, that as they devoted themselves to prayer in this manner, God would show up and move in miraculous and powerful ways. Simply put, prayer is us staying connected to the power of God at its source. It is the fuel that empowers the church to go and to do the work that it was created to do. As followers of Jesus, we are to consistently go before God boldly, shamelessly and persistently in prayer. Without prayer the church is powerless.
5. Sacrificial Generosity
In Acts 2:45, we see that the early Church shared what they had with one another, as any had need. In Acts 4:34, we’re told that there was not a needy person among them. In other words, they leveraged everything they had for the Kingdom of God and for one another. In 2 Corinthians 8:2, Paul says that the Church in Macedonia, even when faced with “severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity.” Also, in 2 Corinthians 9:6-12, we learn that God blesses us in every way, so that we may be generous in every way. Of course the greatest example of generosity is the sacrificial price that Jesus paid for us, by giving up His life on the cross, so that we could be made right with God. In short, we give sacrificially, because He gave sacrificially.
6. Intentional Missional Discipleship
In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus calls His followers to “make disciples of all nations.” Christian discipleship is the process by which believers grow in their relationship with Jesus and are equipped by the Holy Spirit to do the work of ministry, serve others and bear witness to Him. As Jesus made disciples, He sent them out as missionaries/ambassadors of His Kingdom. Throughout the book of Acts, we see the early Church continue to be obedient to Christ’s command to “go and make disciples” and the result was the exponential growth of the Church (Acts 2:47).
