The book of Acts is a tale of miraculous, extraordinary stories, and Acts 9:32-43 is no exception; in this passage, the apostle Peter is seen healing a paralysed man named Aeneas and raising a woman (Tabitha or Dorcas) from the dead. It’s easy to feel daunted by these stories if we are not seeing those things in our own lives, but whilst we do well to seek God for the miraculous, we also see the intimate and personal in these stories and can learn much from these too.

God cares for the individual, as every healing and miracle in the New Testament demonstrates. A paralysed man, bedridden for eight years, comes to find new energy and life. A widow who ‘was always doing good and helping the poor’ (Acts 9:36) is given the opportunity for further service. One thing we need to remember as the story often focuses on the apostle with their miraculous ministry and frequent persecution is that behind-the-scenes, so to speak, go countless acts of service which are usually largely unseen and unknown. Tom Wright comments that Tabitha represents the ‘unsung heroines who have got on with what they do best and have done it to the glory of God.’ (‘Acts For Everyone Pt 1’, P 154) There are many people who, ‘like her, lived their lives in faith and hope, bearing the sorrows of life no doubt as well as celebrating its joys, and finding in the small acts of service to others a fulfilment of the gospel within their own sphere, using traditional skills to the glory of God.’ (ibid.) He goes on to say, ‘Luke is right to draw our eyes down to the small-scale and immediate, in case we should ever forget that these are the people who form the heart of the church, while the apostles and evangelists go about making important decisions, getting locked up, stoned or shipwrecked, preaching great sermons, writing great letters and generally being great and good all over the place.’ (ibid., P 154-155)

Most of us will not be famous in the world’s eyes and may never see the kind of miracles we read about in the Bible. But we can be like Tabitha, using our gifts and talents to serve God in the mundane. We are just ordinary people and see nothing special in our service. God sees the heart, however, and values everything that is offered to Him in faith. Apparently ordinary people are not ordinary to God.

At our recent Team Building Day, we were offered the challenge of explaining the gospel using a random object: a newspaper, a torch, a piece of string and so on. As we rose to that challenge, Gemma commented that she could think of a Christian song in relation to most of these objects, but not chocolate…

Never one to avoid a challenge, Garry set about rectifying that situation, and tonight we had the world premiere of his song ‘Better Than…’ which reminds us God’s love is better than anything – even chocolate!

Better than any chocolate,
Better than any cake,
Better than any ice cream, even with a flake!

And it’s better than money
Or anything it buys,
‘Cos you can never buy a love that never dies.

Oh, the love of God
So high, so deep, so wide.
Yes, the love of God
Means God is by my side.

Oh, the love of God,
The reason why I sing.
Oh, the love of God,
It’s better than anything.

We had the first of our February birthdays to celebrate tonight.

At our ‘Little Big Church’ service tonight, Garry looked at the subject of choices. Sometimes, a choice has a right or wrong answer: the children were asked to decide which was the heaviest book…

… or the longest piece of string…

With other choices, however, there is not a right or wrong answer; the choice will be based on a personal preference, which will vary from person to person (what your favourite colour is, for example, or whether you prefer white, milk or dark chocolate…)

The most important choice we can ever make is the choice to receive God’s love. God’s love for us is ‘better than any chocolate/ better than any cake/ better than any ice cream – even with a flake!’ (as Garry’s new song puts it.) He gives us free will and does not force us to love Him, but there is nothing better than choosing to accept God’s love and follow Him.

It’s not easy, in our busy schedules and tendency to live very isolated lives, to be part of a community that is knitted together in love. Even when we are a part of a local church, we can still avoid deep connections, afraid to open ourselves to other people and to allow them to see our vulnerabilities and real self. We can sometimes seem to be like ships that pass in the night, not really knowing each other and not being committed to each other except in a very superficial way. This is not how God intended life to be.

If we are to deepen the connections between each other so that we truly do love each other as Jesus wants us to, we will need to spend time together, learning how to connect. We need to learn to listen to each other, being tolerant and accepting of differences as we all work towards the common goal of becoming more like Jesus. Paul gave us the picture of how to be united with Christ: ‘having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.’ (Phil 2:2-5) We can’t hope to do this in our own strength, but God never intended the church to be a place run by people! He is our Head and by His Spirit we can be knitted together in love. We are joined by God; we are His hands and His feet in this world, created to demonstrate what love looks like (John 13:34-35) and to re-connect people with Him through the message of reconciliation. (2 Cor 5:17-21)

God wants there to be strong horizontal connections between His children; we are knitted together in love (Col 2:2). David and Jonathan give us an example of what this looks like. One version of the Bible describes this relationship as ‘the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.’ (1 Samuel 18:1, ESV) We all need friendships and connections like this. Despite the rivalry which could have existed between the two (after all, Jonathan was the rightful heir to the throne, but he willingly acknowledged David as God’s chosen one), their friendship stood the test of time, adversity, opposition and distance. They were devoted to each other. They looked out for each other. They protected each other. They wouldn’t listen to those who tried to run the other down, but they cared about each other, and in doing so, they show us what it looks like to be connected by love.

This kind of deep, selfless love is what Jesus told us would distinguish us from the world and draw others to Him (see John 13:34-35, John 15:13), but so many of us settle for shallow, superficial acquaintances instead of pushing on to deeper connections. It can be hard to love others as we are commanded to, but John, in his first letter, shows us the inexorable connections between loving God and loving others:

•  ‘Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble.’ (1 John 2:9-10)

• ‘This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.’ (1 John 3:16-18)

• ‘Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.’ (1 John 4:7)

• ‘Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.’ (1 John 4:11-12)

• ‘Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.’ (1 John 4:20-21)

We can be effective witnesses only as we live out God’s life and love one another as He loves us.