Shaken: Part 1 – Prayer-Powered Results

Ryan Cox • January 13, 2023

The incredible events of Pentecost were now over. There had not only been the birthday of the Church, but an explosive birthday, with thousands coming to the Lord! They are meeting every Lord’s Day in the temple courts, as that was the only place that could hold the assembly. Everyone is getting plugged into home groups in the midst of daily fellowship taking place. There is constant work to be done, extensive responsibilities for the apostles to shoulder, and how does the third chapter of Acts open?

“Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer” (Acts 3:1).

Seriously?!?! With all they have to do, they leave all their duties and responsibilities, take precious time in which a lot of work could be done, and walk all the way to the temple to have an appointed time of daily prayer?!?! Why? Because they knew that was the most important thing for them to do EVERY day – talk with God.

How do you think everything else will turn out during their day?
How do you think results are going to happen?
How do you think God is going to get involved and bless, bless, bless?
How do you think it would affect your life if you were doing that EVERY DAY?

No, seriously, think about that for a moment. If you were to have an appointed, designated time of prayer EVERY single day, what do you think that would do to you?
Give you some peace?
Give you some clarity, purpose, direction for your life?
What do you think that would do with how good of a husband you are? How good of a wife you are? How good
    of a father, mother, sibling, friend, coworker, member of the Lord’s Church you are? 

For Peter and John, a miracle takes place. A 40+ year old man who had been lame since birth, was now able to walk. Miracles of this manner were performed to give authority to the spoken word as they did not yet have the Bible, and as “
all the people ran together to them at the portico named Solomon’s, completely astonished” (vs. 11), Peter sees this, realizing the opportunity God has afforded him.

He says, “
¹²Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, or why are you staring at us, as though by our own power or godliness we made him walk? ¹³The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus, the one whom you handed over… ¹⁵but put to death the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses… ¹⁹Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away… ²⁶God raised up His Servant for you first, and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways” (Acts 3:12-26).

Peter preached Jesus – Jesus is the sole focus of his preaching. Why? Because he was one of hundreds of witnesses who had seen the risen Lord! The world had tried to kill Jesus, but death can never defeat the Author of life; He will always triumph, and Peter had seen his victorious Savior face-to-face!

Having seen the Lord, Peter and John had devoted themselves to His Kingdom, experienced tremendous results, and yet they still turned to the power of prayer in order to take their next and every following steps, and prayer-powered results happened!

As we begin studying the events of Acts 3-4, we will see the story begins and ends with prayer that shook the Church and the world. Might we be so SHAKEN in 2023.

By Bob Dugas May 23, 2025
NS-29 Launch
By Matt Miles May 22, 2025
As many of you may know, I appreciate space. Not space around me, although the older I get the more I appreciate that as well. The things in the heavens fascinate me and have for a large chunk of my life. I love working with our telescopes, allowing people to see for themselves objects that the Lord made on the 4th day of history. When I was younger I followed our Space Shuttle program, and over the years I have had the opportunity to see a couple of those shuttles around the country. Now it is great to see all the renewed interest in exploring the heavenly creation. I know most of it is for evolutionary reasons, yet over and over again something is discovered that points to the trustworthiness of God’s Word. After all, we are to study His creation as Genesis 1:28 states. On a recent trip to El Paso, it occurred to me that Blue Origin’s launch facility is in west Texas somewhere. After some quick searching I realized we were within an hour and half of it, and there was a rescheduled launch window during the time of our meeting. So, with some persuading of my colleagues, we arose early one morning to make the launch. We made it with just minutes to spare. It was spectacular! The whole launch to just beyond the Karman Line (space boundary, 62 miles/100km) and return of the rocket and capsule is about ten minutes total. While Blue Origin is best known for its New Shepherd rocket that carries paying customers to space and back with the biggest windows ever in a capsule, this NS-29 launch was purely experimental with a payload of instruments to measure simulated lunar gravity. Even though it was not a Saturn V, Space Shuttle, Starship or Falcon launch, it was great to hear and feel a launch for the first time, from blast off to the sonic boom return. It has piqued my desire to see a bigger launch now. As I began to reflect on what I experienced, the Lord reminded me of His design. Earth, our home planet, is so well designed for life. There is literally nowhere in all the universe like it. Yet He gave us the ability to discover creation beyond it. The only reason we can launch rockets and do space exploration is because He set it up in an orderly way. Physics works because He established it to work in a predictable fashion. As much as we may never understand everything in the universe from our position here, it works on an ordered reality that is reinforced by God’s Word. This is what drove Sir Isaac Newton in his understanding of physics. He wrote, “The motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone but were by an intelligent Agent.” Evolutionists may come up with theories about the origin of things in the heavens, but over and over again they are being shown through experimentation and observation to be wrong. The Lord set the order of everything in the beginning and sustains it by His Word (Hebrews 1:3). So as you look to the heavens tonight, gaze into the depths of space and observe the different facets the Lord placed up there for our eyes (Genesis 1:17). Peer through a telescope at the lesser light of the moon with marvel and anticipation of further human study in the coming years. Check out the amazing observations being made by the James Webb telescope from deep in space. All of these place a perspective of how awesome our Creator is and how much we depend on Him. Our design becomes more and more obvious with every discovery, yet in our universe we appear so minuscule and fragile. Thanks be to God that His infinite focus has, is and always will be here on us! Blessings.
By Ryan Cox May 22, 2025
Moses & History (part 2)
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