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SCRIPTURE: ACTS 4:32-37

The apostles witnessed and ministered to the church and the fellowship had everything in common. 

REFLECTION 

The theme for our reflection today is using time to leave a legacy. Time is one of the resources or gifts of stewardship. God has given us time to live our lives and at the end render accounts. The parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30 gives a better explanation of using time to leave a legacy with the resources God has blessed us with. Another key word in our theme which we need to define is legacy. Legacy may be understood to mean different things especially in law but for the purpose of our reflection, a legacy is something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past.

The key lesson of the day is that we must use our time as stewards of the Gospel of Christ and the Church that we have inherited from the Apostles and those before us to witness to unbelievers in order to leave a legacy of a bouyant church for the next generation of believers. We realise in today’s Scripture reading that the Apostles left a legacy. It is written in  Act 4:33 that “… with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” It was possible for the apostles to leave a legacy because there was was love, mutual support and care in the church or the fellowship of Christ, we are told that  “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. (Acts 4:32)

Many churches of our time have been blessed with so much material and human resources. God continue to bless the Church so that the fundamental purpose of the Church which is the Great Commission will be fulfilled.  The great commission of Christ to all Christians and believers is found in Matthew 28:18-20, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” My dear friend, any church that yearns for growth and a future must use her time “to give testimony to the resurrection of the Lord” Giving testimony “to the resurrection of the Lord” is the same as evangelism!

The irony of the situation is that many churches are spending so much money on infrastructural development and less money and time on the core business of the church which is winning souls. Our annual budget as a church has more church funds allocated to iron rods, tiles, sliding glass doors, comfortable and state of the art auditoriums which are geared towards structural expansion of the already existing chapel which is not even filled to capacity on normal worship days. We become more obsessed with the beauty and competition of our chapels with the chapels of other churches than investing in resources to win and bring more souls to the church. Some churches in Europe failed to take evangelism seriously and the only legacy they left is an empty chapel. This is a great lesson for the Church in Africa and for that matter Ghana. The greatest legacy we can leave for posterity is a church or fellowship of believers who are filled with the Holy Spirit and passionate about using their time for mission and evangelism. When the church fails to grow by winning more souls, it leaves no legacy. A soul-winning church has more prospects and legacy in the future than a fund-raising and money focused church. In other words, a substantial part of funds raised in churches must be used for the core business of the church, winning souls. The more souls are won the richer and more successful the church will be. The early church operated on this principle “and great grace was upon them all.”(Acts 4:33). The church must begin to re-organise and re-prioritise it needs, to reflect our core business and the use of time to leave a legacy. Every believer in a Bible-believing church of Christ must see himself or herself as an apostle. The meaning of an aposlte is “a person sent on a mission” We have all been saved by grace and sent on a mission to use our time to spread the Gospel or Good News of Christ wherever we find ourselves and to leave a legacy of souls who will continue the great commission when we are done serving our time on earth. It will suffice to add that a church may go into business for profit but again we must use substantial part of the profit to invest in the core business of the church which is soul winning. Shalom 

PRAYER 

ALMIGHTY GOD REVIVE THE SPIRIT OF MISSION AND EVANGELISM IN THE CHURCH SO THAT WE MAY RETURN TO THE CORE BUSINESS OF THE CHURCH USING OUR TIME TO LEAVE A WORTHY AND PLEASING LEGACY TO THE GLORY OF YOUR NAME. AMEN

Jean-Paul Agidi (Rev)