Focus: The Ball Is Now In Your Court!

Text: Act.1:1

"The FORMER treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus BEGAN BOTH to DO and TEACH."

Luke is giving a certain Theophilus, a man of great standing in the society, a record of Christ's words and deeds, for his own personal perusal, appraisal and appreciation. Luke is actually selling his Lord Jesus Christ to Theophilus. Yes, Theophilus is being evangelized, informed, or discipled, and he is doing so through writing.

The "former treatise" refers to the Gospel of Luke, and the Acts of the Apostles is the second book to the same man.

Luke is informing Theophilus, and indeed all of us, of all that Jesus Christ began to do and teach, and He kept doing and teaching it until the day He ascended into heaven and took His rightful place at the right hand of the Father. In fact, the book of Acts relates to us the things that Jesus Christ continued to do and teach through His own disciples and apostles. So in Luke He began doing and teaching, and in the Acts He continued same through His chosen ones.

The implication of this is that we have been called and chosen to step into the place of Christ on earth to continue with all He was doing and teaching, and we cannot afford to fail Him. He is not physically here anymore, and so, the ball is now in our court. In John 17, Christ says to the Father, "As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world" (v.18). 

We are in Christ's place; He sent us the same way that the Father sent Him. We are people on a divine mission - emissaries of the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

We have a huge responsibility to continue and complete the work that our Master Jesus Christ had started while He was here on earth. We must get busy for the Lord. We cannot do any less than He did, nor do anything else different from what He did. Let us do all that He did and teach all that he taught. The ball is now in our court, and we must not fail our God. According to the Message Bible in 1Cor.12:7, each of us has been given something to do that shows who God is. Let us not fail God! Let us not disappoint the Lord! Let us do and teach as our Lord Jesus Christ did! Amen!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter