Note Taken Of Your Dining Place

Be not fooled, or even try to refute this spiritual reality. Your words and works at any time - be it night or day; good times or bad times; pleasure or pain; happy times or sad times – reflect your place of dining.

In this meditation, which will take us into tomorrow, we shall turn our attention to people whose dining place is the Lord. The will of this simple, yet intensely creative, yet fully, Spirit-led study is to have each of us be honest about our dining condition. This honesty should propel and guide us to seek our Lord as our one and only dining place.

We are discoursing on one single text, perhaps well-known to you. However, my prayer for you and me is that in truth and in fact, all that we receive, speak, think, decide, accept, believe and digest, will make a noticeably marked difference in each life. I pray that it is not just a marked difference, but it be so radical that none of us, not one single one of us, will stay as we are, regardless of where we are. May others see and hear us and know that we have been with Jesus.

Here is the text. When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, and ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Acts 4: 13

Let’s go through this statement with a fine tooth comb, as it were, so that nothing that is for us at this moment, will be missed or passed by.

The point that holds sway over us is this. People took note of a fact and it was this. Peter and John’s dining place was Jesus. How did they arrive at that conclusion? And who were the people who arrived at such a decision? There is an interesting background and backdrop that needs to be unfolded.

Peter has just healed a crippled beggar in the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. We are told that while the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon’s Colonnade. When Peter saw what was happening, he began to evangelize the people. Filled with the Holy Spirit, he spoke boldly and urgently, telling the people all about Jesus, Crucified and Risen and spurring them on to repentance and turn from their wicked ways. The priests, the captain of the temple guard, along with Sadducees went to Peter and John and listened to what they were telling the people. These officials became so disturbed by what they were hearing, they arrested Peter and John, kept them in jail overnight as it was Sabbath and brought them before the auspicious Sanhedrin, the next day.

It is stated that Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and the other men of the high priest’s family were all in attendance. Can you imagine, two servants of Jesus, are placed before this body of highly learned men, to answer this treasonable question. By what power or what name did you do this? Acts 4: 7b. These highly qualified and extremely educated, distinguished, lettered men, the highest in the land, could not believe their eyes and ears. Their one and only conclusion, was a description which showed nothing but the dining power, place and produce of these men. It was no other but Jesus.

Jesus and Jesus alone, through His Holy Spirit who indwells all who keep faith and trust in Him, is still our supplier, provider and distributor of food in our wilderness times. Mind you, this is not food that one is barely able to muster up. This is not food that has to be begged for, then gathered all together to see how best it can be shared around. No! As adequate as the manna which fell from heaven and fed the children in the wilderness, so is the Living Bread which has come down from heaven. Just as faithful as Father God was, in satisfactorily feeding His children, without missing one single meal, so too He is faithful to supply us with heavenly, spiritual bread without fail. Nothing and no one hinders Him from feeding you and producing His works and words in you.