Acts 16: 29-34 (NIV)
29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33 At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized. 34 The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.
“Faith includes the conviction that certain things are true, that certain events have happened and have redemptive power, and specifically that God has brought eschatological salvation in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. Therefore, faith is a positive response to the apostles’ demonstration from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. Yet the apostles did not merely call upon people to revise their intellectual opinions. The summons to faith is also a call to personal commitment to a living person. ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household’ (16:31 NIV). Belief ‘in’ or ‘upon’ Jesus is a transfer of trust and dependence to him, rooted in the reality of his resurrection life. Because Jesus is risen from the dead, the apostles ‘committed [Christians] to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust’ (14:23 NIV)… Such a radical change of allegiance will be shown in submission to baptism in Jesus’ name and a lifestyle of joy, love, and holiness.”
– Dennis Johnson, The Message of Acts in the History of Redemption
While the worship song is playing, let’s pray for two things. First, may our hearts burn with a passion to see people saved. Second, pray for a revival of God’s salvation among our 5 churches, namely a radical change of allegiance, baptisms in Jesus’ name, and a lifestyle of joy, love, and holiness among those we are reaching out to.
Let’s worship and pray to “For the sake of the world” (click here) by Bethel.
-CR