With One Accord

Yesterday, as is our practice at Wednesday morning prayer meetings at Hope City, we prayed for the body of Christ. Our focus this time was Acts 4:29–31, asking God to make His present-day church into a praying people. We asked that we would experience a filling of the Holy Spirit and the resulting wave of boldness to preach the Gospel similar to theirs in this passage. That God would again back it up with signs and wonders in the Name of Jesus.

As our prayer leader pointed out beforehand, on that particular occasion in Acts 4, prayer was the prerequisite for the Holy Spirit’s outpouring. When they had prayed . . . [i]

Prior to Acts 4, praying was the prerequisite for the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost when 120 disciples made it their practice to gather together. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication. [ii] And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all assembled together in one place. [iii]

If praying positioned them for the Holy Spirit’s outpouring at Pentecost, and prayer positioned those in Acts 4 for another infilling in the face of threats, I’d say the church in these last days certainly needs prayer to position us as well. We need to be filled. And refilled. This next outpouring we’re asking for will not just be on the original 120 disciples, but on all mankind as promised . . . this is [the beginning of] what was spoken through the prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, God declares, that I will pour out of My Spirit upon all mankind . . . [iv]

Amen to that, Lord. Do it again!

Then it occurred to me—as phenomenal a work as it was that the Holy Spirit filled weak believers, transforming them into bold preachers of the Gospel, and that three thousand believers were added that first day—what a mind-boggling, internal phenomena it was that the Lord beforehand motivated His weak, fragmented body to assemble together in one place. And with one accord no less! Such persuasive power He has!

With such discord among us and around us today, the church needs that same Holy Spirit persuasion toward unity. Not a worldly Tower-of-Babel kind of unity that God had to squelch by confusing their speech, but Pentecostal unity that bridges gaps and brings diversities together in one Spirit, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.[v]

Who, but God, could accomplish such a thing?

I am in awe.

[i] Acts 4:31 [ii] Acts 1:13–15 [iii] Acts 2:1 [iv] Acts 2:15–17 [v] Genesis 11:1–9; Acts 2:6–12, 41; Romans 15:6