Student Devotion Week 5: The Church's Message: Peter Speaks

Key Verse: Acts 2:32, "God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact."

"Man raised from the Dead!" It sounds like a headline you'd read in the National Enquirer. But this fact is the basis for Christianity. The heart of the gospel isn't a list of rules or regulations. It's Jesus' message that we need-and can have-new life. And this new life is available to anyone who believes Jesus died and arose from the dead.

In Acts 2:14-33 Peter follow up the incredible baptism of the Holy Spirit with an awesome Pentecost sermon. He speaks the truth about the Holy Spirit-that God had promised it and kept that promise. And then Peter boldly proclaims that the Jesus they'd all watched die is alive again. More than anything else, this defined the beliefs of the apostles and the early church. Without the resurrection there is no Christianity because Christ would still be dead.

The truths about Jesus in Peter's sermon have always been the Church's central message; it should be a message we claim for ourselves. Because Jesus is alive, we can have a relationship with him and he's working in our lives on a daily basis. IT gives us confidence in the hope that one day we, too, will be resurrected. This week we'll look at what the resurrection means to us on a daily basis.