Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 96 · April 6
Continued Stedfastly
“And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”
Friend,
Being told to do more at church has worn you out. You missed last week, and you half expect this to be one more push.
So I want to set one verse in front of you and then leave you alone with it: "And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." Four things are named there, and one verb covers all four. That verb means sticking with something, staying close to it, and not drifting away. Luke uses the same word for the believers waiting in the upper room before Pentecost: "These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication." It is a word about showing up again and again, more than about how strongly you feel.
Look at what the four things are: teaching, one another, a shared meal, and prayer. Three of them cannot be done alone in any kind of Christianity, and the fourth was being learned in a crowded room, by about three thousand people who had only just been baptized. This is a picture of a young church together. If you read it as a private report card for one tired person, you will fail it fast.
That is the heart of my invitation. Somewhere near you this week there is a room with an empty chair in it. Four ordinary things are happening in that room, the same four that have carried the church for two thousand years. You would be welcome there, even without a story ready and without your week in order. The three thousand never did their continuing on their own, and you do not have to either. The Lord who "added to the church daily" is still adding people like you.
Yours in the same room,
a fellow learner
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 96 is Carried from Start to Finish (Isaiah 46:3-4).