What Should we Do Now?

We do not live for ourselves; we serve God by serving others.
Acts 2:37-47

The greatest thing in life is being reconciled with God.  Salvation through Jesus Christ doesn't result in us immediately being taken up to heaven once we are saved.  We are left here on earth for a purpose.  We are saved to serve God.  As we serve others we imitate Christ who served us and met our deepest need.  Now it is our turn.  We're up!


Those who accept God's salvation through fait in Jesus Christ have been given the privilege of working with God to lead others to faith and growth in Christ. After the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the apostles began giving the people, as Paul Harvey would say, "the rest of the story."

Peter taught them to repent (change the mind, your thinking, towards God).  He then pointed out that baptism was a subsequent second step.  Before the people would ceremonially baptize themselves in the many mikveh in Jerusalem.  They operated on the principle of 1) make your outside clean enough to go before God, 2) go before God and do service to him.  Basically, "cleanse your body before your body, soul and spirit go before God to do the prescribed rituals."

Peter pointed out to them they NEEDED to 1) repent and clean your "insides", your soul and spirit; 2) then display that "internal cleansing" to others through: A) baptism, ceremonially cleansing your "outside" demonstrating that you were "clean on the inside", and B) going and serving God in your everyday life.  Basically, "cleanse your soul and your spirit, then demonstrate the internal cleansing through ceremonially cleansing your body, and then take that cleansed body, soul and spirit along with the Holy Spirit of God with you into your daily lives, thus beginning your lives in eternity with God.

The Jerusalem church, the 3000+ believers who believed this new conceptualization lived in community with others and began to live that "walking with the Holy Spirit of God" in their daily lives.  Displaying for us that such a pattern allowed us to "walk with God in fellowship through obedience to the direction that God's Holy Spirit provided to our spirit and soul to direct our bodies here on earth.