"And they devoted themselves..."

The word devotion means ardently dedicated to, giving or directing effort to a cause of activity.  Today, Americans are devoted to many things.  Ardent Red Sox fans will spend 140+ evenings watching 3+ hours of baseball.  Band junkies will spend hours a day listening to music, voicing adoration on blogs, and checking myspace and facebook fan pages every 2 hours.  Gym enthusiasts direct daily effort and dozens of hours a month to becoming fit, and we haven't even touched on the computer game addicts.

In Acts 2:42, the church was experiencing a powerful move of the Holy Spirit.  Tongues, prophecy, salvations, baptisms, and soon healings were becoming common place.  In the midst of all this, we find the church is devoted to something.  "And they devoted themselves to the apostle's teaching and the fellowship, to breaking of bread and to prayers."


I honestly believe we may be coming into a genuine move of the Holy Spirit. Our church gatherings are being touched by the presence of God and over the last months several people have been instantly healed including 2 in the last week at Boston University!

We can give our time to many activities in our culture.  As the Holy Spirit begins to move, are you prepared to sacrifice some of those activities, pick up your cross to follow Jesus, and devote yourself to gathering with your church, prayer, and reading the Bible?  For a move of God to be sustained, we need to be prepared for such sacrifices.  Interestingly, one of the Merriam-Webster definitions for devotion is "religious fervor."  Let's stir up that fervor and devote ourselves now to what God is doing!

It starts by taking time each day to read the Bible, pray, and listen to and obey the voice of the Holy Spirit.  We can do this together!