Tag: Andy Cisneros

From God

Acts 5

April 23

The early church leaders were starting to experience the same persecution that Jesus faced. In Acts 5, we find the “religious” Pharisees objecting to the preaching that was going on, again. Evil men will always try to stop the truth.

The Pharisees wanted to stop the preaching of the truth by killing Christ’s followers. One of the pharisaical leaders had more wisdom than the others in spiritual matters. That Pharisee was Gamaliel, a doctor of the law (Acts 5: 34). Gamaliel stood up and advised the mob of blood-thirsty Pharisees, “… Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” (Acts 5:38-39).

What a good point to keep in mind for a Christian. If something is of man, it probably will not last. Often, we have ideas about what we can do for God or even ourselves. We try. We plan. We spend, but the idea does not flourish. The effort is wasted, and the goal never materializes. Often it does not succeed because the effort was not of God, and it flopped. Ministries, relationships, business enterprises, and other endeavors have not succeeded because God was not in them.

However, when God is in the matter, nothing on this Earth can stop it from succeeding. Businesses had thrived when all odds were against them because the founders sought God about the matter and were convinced, He was in it. Ministries, with all the critics prophesying doom and gloom, were baffled when it turned out to be a flourishing outreach because God was in it. Men and women have looked back on long marriages because before dating had even gotten started, they sought God’s will and way for their lives. Even when we look at how the Bible is still around despite men trying to destroy and remove it from existence. Yet here it is in every city and available to everyone. You probably have a couple in your home alone. Amazing!

How few failures and disappointments we would have if we did the wise thing first. Seek God’s direction in all of life’s endeavors. If God is for it, who could possibly stop it?

What would it look like if you preached like the apostles did? Do you believe that God can use your faithfulness? Your willingness to speak the truth even if it meant that you might be ridiculed, mocked. If God is for you who can be against you? Maybe give it a shot this week and see what speaking the truth in love to others might do.

-Andy Cisneros

Questions for Reflection & Discussion

  1. Can you recall an effort you were involved in that flopped because God was not in it? What did you learn from this experience? How will you (or did you) proceed differently next time?
  2. What have the apostles endured so far in Acts? Why? What is their attitude now? (5:41)
  3. What do you do day after day? What are you known for talking about? How does that compare with the apostles in Acts 5:42? Any changes you would like to make (or God would like you to make)?
2022 SeekGrowLove Bible Reading PlanDownload

Living for Christ and Each Other

Acts 4

April 22

After the events of the day of Pentecost, the healing of the lame man, and the great response of multitudes in Jerusalem, the church faced life in the world of that day. A world of darkness, and difficulty. And yet met it with a flowing out of the life of Jesus Christ. This is ideal Christianity, true, genuine Christianity. Unfortunately, there is also a counterfeit Christianity. It came in shortly after this in the early church, and evidence of it will be seen throughout the book of Acts. Wherever the true church has gone throughout the world, counterfeit Christianity has gone right along with it. How can you tell true Christianity from counterfeit?

Counterfeit Christianity can be recognized externally as a kind of religious club where people, largely of the same social status or class, and bound together by a mutual interest in some religious project or program, meet to advance that particular cause. That is part of Christianity and let’s face it every group that gets together. But that is a far cry from all that true Christianity is. True fellowship consists of individuals who share the same divine life, who are made up of all ages, backgrounds, classes, and status-levels of society, and who, when meeting together, regard themselves as what they really are, brothers and sisters in one family. With that mutual background of love and fellowship they manifest the life of Jesus Christ.

That is what we have here. The key idea is community, commonness, everything in common. They were of one heart and mind. Here were people who, by the Holy Spirit, had been united into one life. They were of one heart. At the very deepest level of their lives they belonged to each other, and that is only possible by means of the Holy Spirit. They did not need to have met someone before to recognize that if he or she is a believer they belong to each other, they are of the same family and they always have the most important thing in common. This was true of these people.

Not only did they have it, but it also manifested itself in the fact that everyone had a new attitude toward the material life. This is not a forced distribution of goods. It is not an attempt to make everyone give up their material things and redistribute them to others. No, it is a change of attitude, saying, nothing that I possess is mine, but everything that I possess is God’s, and therefore it is available to anyone who needs it. So here were these early Christians, one in heart and mind and body, united together. That is the church as it ought to be.

-Andy Cisneros

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

  1. Don’t point the finger at others – but look at yourself. How authentic, true and genuine is your Christianity? Are there any areas where you slip into a counterfeit Christianity? What would the fix be?
  2. How will you practice unity of the church body this week? And next week?
  3. What do you “possess” that is God’s? (Hint: it should be a pretty long list – but go for it – no one word answers here.). How can you show that these belong to God and make them available to anyone in need?
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To God be the Glory

Acts 3

April 21

At the beginning of Acts 3, we find two disciples (Peter and John) endowed with the Holy Spirit perform a miracle. John and Peter told a lame man (Acts 3:2-8), who had been unable to walk since birth, to get up and walk…and the man did! Unused and weak legs were instantly transformed, and the man was healed. Not only was he able to walk, but his gratefulness could not be contained, and he leaped into the air and praised the LORD. That is why most miracles are performed so that God will get the glory.

Soon, however, the word of the supernatural occurrence got around. According to what Peter said, the crowd gave the two men credit for the healing. Instantly Peter corrected their error, “… When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?”

God is still in the miracle performing business. While we no longer have apostles with us today (those who physically walked with and were taught by Christ) we do have followers of Christ. Righteous men and women who believe God works miracles even today. When God does the impossible, it is always He that should be honored, never a man. The person used to do God’s will is simply that, one that God used.

Unfortunately, the Healer and the Changer of the impossible often gets forgotten. God seldom gets the glory for doing the incredible. People pray for healing or a bad situation to change.  It is changed, but God does not get the credit. Others believe that a certain “man of God” can change the situation. The preacher’s prayers are honored, and the man is sometimes revered as being responsible. Often little credit is given to God. The man, medicine, or objects are just the vehicles God uses. God is the only one that can change anything.

“When in doubt, give God the glory.”

-Andy Cisneros

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

  1. Does God do miracles today? How do you know?
  2. Do we still pray to Him expecting to be heard? Has God answered prayer in your life? As little as the answer to a prayer or request may be, it still is a miracle. Did you thank God for answering your request?
  3. How will you give God the glory?
2022 SeekGrowLove Bible Reading PlanDownload

Devote Yourselves

Acts 2

April 20

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Acts 2:42

One of the things the very first churches did was devote themselves to fellowship. Fellowship means holding all things in common. They would share everything. They began to know and to love one another. Here are 3,000 people suddenly added to a little band of twenty. Most of them probably were strangers before this time. Many of them had come from other parts of the world into Jerusalem for that occasion. They did not know each other. But now they are one in Christ, and they begin to love each other and start to talk to each other, to find out what each other has been thinking and how each has been reacting, and to share their problems and burdens and needs, to talk about these together and pray together about them. There was a wonderful sense of community, of commonality, of belonging to each other. That is the fellowship which is the intended life for the body of Christ.

If the body is not operating, then the life is not manifest. That means there is no power because the life of God is always power. The reason the church has been so powerless lately is that it has been so fragmented and broken. We have estranged ourselves from each other. In Ephesians, the Apostle Paul says, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God… (Ephesians 4:30). Then he lists the things that grieve the Holy Spirit: Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:31-32)

If that is not happening, then the Spirit of God is grieved. When the Holy Spirit is grieved, it does not act. There is no life. The church becomes dull and dead and sterile and mediocre. All this is manifest in an empty ritual, with no vitality in it. God intends that Christians should have fellowship, should share one another’s lives and thoughts and problems — bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. It is not an option; it is an essential. Therefore, when the Holy Spirit of God begins to move in any congregation, or in any assembly of believers, he starts at this point. He begins to heal the brokenness of their lives and their relationships one with another, to get them to admit to each other their malice and their anger and their frustration and their grudges, and to forgive one another. This is when life begins to flow once again through the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What can you do to have more fellowship with fellow believers?

-Andy Cisneros

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

  1. Look again at the list of things that grieve the Holy Spirit, as well as the positives we are to do instead. Slow down and prayerfully consider each one, searching your own heart, words, attitudes and actions. What do you need to ask forgiveness for? Who do you need to forgive?
  2. How can you use fellowship to then bear one another’s burdens?
  3. How devoted are you to fellowship with the body of believers? What can you do to have more? With whom? When? Where? How? And, of course, remind yourself why?
2022 SeekGrowLove Bible Reading PlanDownload

What is Your Act?

Acts 1

April 19

The first few verses of chapter one constitutes an introduction to the book of Acts, giving us the key to the book. Here we have revealed the essential strategy by which Jesus Christ proposes to change the world, a strategy which is the secret of the character of the church when it is operating as it was intended to operate. I strongly suspect that most Christians suffer from a terrible inferiority complex when we confront the world around us. We have bought the idea of many around that the church is quite irrelevant, an archaic group that is irrelevant today. That view is false. The church is the most important body in the world today because whatever happens in the world happens because of something that is, or is not, happening in the church.

Now, in his first statement here, Luke gives us the great strategy by which the Lord works among mankind. He says, “In my former book…I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach… ” The Gospel of Luke is the record of the Son of God. Jesus, the man, came to begin something, to do and to teach, and the record of that beginning is in the Gospels. But this second book is the continuation of what Jesus began to do. In a very real sense, Acts is not the acts of believers, but the continuing acts of Jesus. It is an account of what Jesus continues to do and to teach. In the Gospels he did it in his physical body of flesh. In the book of Acts he is doing it through the bodies of men and women who are followers of him and endowed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Whenever God wants to get a message across to men, he does not simply send someone to announce it; his final way of driving it home is to express the message in flesh and blood. He takes a life and aims it in a certain direction and, by the manifestation of his own life through the blood and flesh of a human being, he makes clear what he has to say. That is the strategy of the book of Acts. It is the record of followers of Christ endowed in the Holy Spirit; men and women,  owned by him, and thus manifesting his life. That is the secret of authentic Christianity. Anytime you find a Christianity that is not doing that, it is false Christianity. No matter how much it may adapt the garb and language of Christianity, if it is not the activity of human beings possessed and indwelt by the life of Jesus Christ it is not authentic Christianity. That is the true power of the church, as we shall see in this book.

The book of Acts therefore is an unfinished book. It is not finished but is still being written. The book abruptly closes with an account of Paul in the city of Rome, living in his own hired house. It just ends there as though you might turn over the next page and begin the next adventure. What is your act?

-Andy Cisneros

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

  1. What is your act?
  2. How would you rate yourself as a follower of Christ? What role does the Holy Spirit have in your life?
  3. Looking at Acts 1 what do you find the disciples of Jesus doing? What is their mission? What is their hope? Is this an appealing group to be a part of? Explain.
2022 SeekGrowLove Bible Reading PlanDownload

You Follow Me!

John 21

April 18

After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. He answered yes three times. Then Jesus told Peter how he would die—apparently by crucifixion. Peter wondered about how it would go with John. So he asked Jesus, “What about this man?” Jesus brushed off the question and said, “What is that to you? You follow me!” Here’s the whole exchange.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.” Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who had been reclining at the table close to him and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” (John 21:18-22)

Jesus words “None of your business, follow me” are sweet to my ears. They are liberating from the depressing bondage of fatal comparing. Of looking at someone else’s life and feeling inadequate.

I was encouraged by Jesus’ word to me (and you): “What is that to you? You follow me!” Peter had just heard a very hard word. You will die…painfully. His first thought was comparison. What about John? If I have to suffer, will he have to suffer? If my ministry ends like that, will his end like that? If I don’t get to live a long life, will he get to?

That’s the way we sinners are wired. Compare. Compare. Compare. We crave to know how we stack up in comparison to others.

That word landed on me with great joy. Jesus will not judge me according to my superiority or inferiority over anybody. No sibling. No friend. No ministry. These are not the standard. Jesus has a work for me to do (and a different one for you). It is not what he has given anyone else to do. There is a grace to do it. Will I trust him for that grace and do what he has given me to do? That is the question.

I hope you find encouragement and freedom today when you hear Jesus say to all your comparisons: “What is that to you? You follow me!”

Learning to walk in freedom with you.

-Andy Cisneros

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

  1. In what areas do you most often fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others? When you compare yourself to others, do you more often see yourself on the shorter end of the stick or above others? What is the danger in either direction?
  2. How can we remember and put in action Jesus words: “What is that to you? You follow me!”
  3. What adjectives would you use to describe Jesus in this chapter? What are his priorities? Page through the previous chapters of John asking the same questions? How can you seek to be Christ-like this week? What work does Jesus have for you to do?
2022 SeekGrowLove Bible Reading PlanDownload

Do You See?

John 20

April 17

Do You See? Have you recognized Jesus’ resurrection? Is it a foreign idea to you?

Here’s the issue: In verse 8 it says, “Then the other disciple [John], who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed” (John 20:8). What did he see? What did he believe? Jesus wasn’t there—just some cloths that he left behind.

Compare this to Mary in verse 18: She has met Jesus in the garden and spoken to him. She returns to the disciples and says, “I have seen the Lord” (John 20:18). We don’t have Mary’s direct evidence. We are more like John in the tomb—there is evidence, and either we see through it or we don’t. The issue is: Do you see? The issue is: Do I care? Do I find that idea helpful? Do I feel that it helps me flourish as a human being? And if it seems like it doesn’t, then I will just view it the way I view UFOs and possible life in some distant galaxy—I just don’t need to bother with it.

Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’ followers, goes to His tomb only to find that He’s not there! Jesus appears to Mary and several others, fulfilling all that He had said about rising from the dead.

Either you see Christ risen and that changes you or Christ’s death is some obscure event that happened in the past.

The reality is Jesus is alive! He is risen! He can change us like he promised. We have no hope of changing ourselves. The only way we can put away sinful habits is through a relationship with Jesus made possible by His death and resurrection.

On the cross, Jesus clothed Himself in our sin. When Peter and John looked into the empty tomb, they saw Jesus was not there and He had left His burial clothes. John 20 shows us that Jesus left our sinful nature in the grave when He rose from the dead.

“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

We do not have to be controlled by our desire to sin. Not only do we not have to be clothed in sin, the resurrection means we get to be clothed in something better. In Colossians 3:12, Paul says, “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Following Jesus allows us to put away our old lives and begin new ones.

If you think this does not matter to you, remember, those who are in Christ—that is, who believe on him, and belong to him, and receive forgiveness and reconciliation from him—will be raised with him. And Paul says in Philippians 3:21 that Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” This is not a UFO, or irrelevant life on another galaxy. This is what will happen when God judges the world by a man, Jesus Christ.

Do you see?

-Andy Cisneros

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

  1. Do you see that Jesus is alive? What evidence leads you to believe that Jesus rose from the dead and is living today?
  2. What does it mean to you that you don’t have to be clothed in sin any more? Are you still? What does one do to make the transition from living the old life to the new? If you aren’t sure, who can you talk to about it?
  3. Who do you know who needs to see? What can you show them about Jesus – today?
2022 SeekGrowLove Bible Reading PlanDownload

Everything or Nothing: A tale of two women

John 12

In Judges 17 we meet Micah’s mother. She promises a certain amount of money to God but holds back most (17:3). She built an altar and disgraces herself by not giving everything to God. Fast forward to the New Testament where we meet a woman who meets Jesus and takes her most treasured possession, her perfume, and pours it on Jesus’ feet. The comparison is stark. On one hand, you have Micah’s mother who holds back and on the other hand, you have a woman who lavishly gives everything at Jesus’s feet.

We all have things that we value and take great care to keep. At the beginning of John 12, we see the thing Mary considered precious — a bottle of expensive perfume. This perfume was not just a fragrance to Mary. It was worth nearly a year’s wages. Mary wasn’t just saving this perfume for a special day. This bottle was her financial security.

“Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume” (John 12:3).

In an act of love, Mary poured her perfume onto Jesus’ feet. She knelt to the ground and washed His feet, ignoring the opinions of others. Mary gave radically. She gave not knowing if she would be able to live through the day but trusting Jesus anyway. She gave with such extravagance that the disciples told her she had given too much.

To put Mary’s situation in today’s terms, it would be like going to church next Sunday, feeling called to give, and tithing your entire year’s salary! Yet, this is the same way God gave to us. He gave His best when He gave us Jesus. God not only calls us to radical faith, but He also calls us to radical giving.

What woman are you like? Are you giving everything to the Lord? Ask yourself how you can be more extravagant in your giving. What’s holding you back from pouring your security out at Jesus’ feet? How do these verses show us that we can trust Him with what’s most precious to us?

Is there anything in your life you have not given to God?

-Andy Cisneros

Today’s Bible reading passages can be read or listened to at BibleGateway here – Judges 17-18 and John 12

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Timing is Everything

John 11

Jesus’ friend Lazarus falls ill, but by the time Jesus reaches Lazarus’ house, it’s too late. Jesus weeps for His friend then raises Lazarus from the dead!

Have you ever wondered about God’s timing? You are not alone. Some of Jesus’ close friends did, too. When Lazarus became deathly ill, his sisters, Mary, and Martha, asked Jesus for help. They knew Jesus was traveling and His ministry was growing, but He was a close friend. Surely, he could take a few minutes to heal their brother. But Jesus didn’t show up. Two days later when He arrived, it was too late. Lazarus was dead.

Martha and Mary were not only grief stricken, but deeply troubled by Jesus’ apparent lack of concern. “‘Lord,’ Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again’’’ (John 11:21–23). Even hearing Jesus’ words, the sisters were probably wondering, “Lord, what are You thinking now?!”

“Whoever lives by believing in me will never die” (John 11:26).

As they traveled to Lazarus’ gravesite, Martha questioned Jesus’ timing again. His response to her was clear, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” After thanking God, Jesus called out loudly, “Lazarus, come out!” And he did. Lazarus, still wrapped in strips of linen, but fully alive, walked out of the tomb (John 11:38-44).

Maybe you’ve questioned Jesus’ timing. You knew exactly when He needed to show up and what He needed to do, but it didn’t work out the way you had planned. Even when we don’t understand, He can be trusted.

Isaiah 55:8–9 says, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”

• Have you ever doubted God’s timing? What did you learn from that situation? If you’re unsure about God’s plan or timing in a situation now, would you surrender it to Him? 

-Andy Cisneros

Today’s Bible reading passages can be read or listened to at BibleGateway here – Judges 15-16 and John 11

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How, Who, What?

John 10

How can we live a full life? We all want our lives to be fulfilled. We all want to know that answer, don’t we? Well, we can’t answer how until we focus on the more important question: What or who is the source of abundant life?

Jesus compares Himself to a good shepherd who feeds and cares for His sheep. Tired of Jesus’ metaphors, religious leaders corner Jesus at the temple and ask Him directly: Are you the Christ?

Jesus says in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” What is Jesus saying here? Chasing anything other than Jesus will steal what God has blessed you with, kill your dreams, and destroy your purpose in life. Only Jesus can restore the blessings that have been stolen, bring life to dreams that have died, and give our lives purpose. Possessions come and go, as does the enjoyment they bring. The only way to experience joy that never leaves is to have something that cannot fail. An abundant life comes from Jesus, who never fails.

“I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out and find pasture” (John 10:9).

When a reporter asked John D. Rockefeller how much money was enough to make him happy, the millionaire replied, “Just one dollar more.” Nothing on Earth is ever going to satisfy us. But if you ask anyone who has made Jesus the Lord of their life, they will tell you that they are blessed beyond anything they could have ever asked or imagined. A life apart from Jesus will always leave you lacking, but a life centered on Jesus is full of abundance.

• What do you strive for in life? Is what you strive for different from what Jesus strived for?

• What are some common traps that keep us from living the life Jesus wants for us?

-Andy Cisneros

Today’s Bible reading can be read or listened to at BibleGateway here – Judges 13-14 and John 10

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