Acts 15:1-21

Be still: Take 5 minutes to sit in silence and breathe slowly. 

Read: Acts 15:1-21 

Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are. (v10.11) 

Encounter: I really enjoy the feistiness and passion in Peter’s tone. No wonder the whole assembly became silent in verse 12. This heated debate was about whether the Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses. Obviously, that isn’t something occupying our minds regularly today, but verse 10 feels like such a timeless question and one that we’re still wrestling with in different ways thousands of years later: the struggle of putting a yoke/having a yoke put on our neck that we can’t bear. Whether it's old stories we inherit from our families or narratives from the cultural waters we find ourselves swimming in. The baggage we accumulate from bad experiences, the lies we tell ourselves or the lies that have been spoken over us. All the things that can burden us, it is the grace of God that saves us from them all. We’re saved by his grace for our relationship with him forever, but his grace is also for the here and now. 

Apply: What does that mean/look like in practice? It sounds so ordinary and dull, but I think it simply means coming back to Jesus again and again when we find ourselves wrapped up in an old story or carrying a burden that isn’t ours. We bring it back to him. Whether that’s through writing things down, giving them to Jesus then tearing them up! Or sitting in stillness, holding whatever you’re carrying in your head and asking for his grace to cover us. 

Devote: Jesus, thank you that there is no problem, no anxiety, no concern, I can’t give to you. Please take off the yokes around my neck that don’t belong there. I give them to you and thank you for your grace.