He walked the length of his own street one evening in June because the dog wanted out, and he counted.
Eleven gardens visible from the lane. Nine sheds. Two with a bolt and no lock, one with a hasp and nothing through it, five wide open with the door propped on a brick, and one, at number fourteen, with a padlock the size of a fist.
Number fourteen is his.
He grew up somewhere nothing was locked. Not a house, not a truck, not a boat. His grandmother's door had a hook on the inside to stop it banging in a wind and that was the only mechanism in the building, and if you needed something from anybody you went and got it and told them after.
He has a padlock the size of a fist.
He knows exactly where it came from. There was a bad week a very long time ago, in a different town, in a different part of his life, and some things went from a shed and one of them was his father's, and he has never fully got over the particular one that went.
So he bought a lock. That was reasonable. Nobody would argue with a man buying a lock after that.
What he could not account for, standing in the lane with the dog pulling, is that it has been thirty years. Different town. Different street. Different life. Not one thing has gone missing from that garden in the entire time he has lived in it, and there is a padlock the size of a fist on the door, and everybody on the street has seen it every day for years and drawn whatever conclusion people draw.
All that believed were together
Stand at the shed door a minute, because there is a description in Acts of a group of people in one city in one season, and it is worth reading for what it actually says.
And all that believed were together, and had all things common.Acts 2:44
Two clauses, and the order of them matters more than anything else in the verse.
Were together. And had all things common.
The togetherness comes first and the holding follows from it. It is a description of what happened among people who were already in each other's houses daily, and the book records it as something that occurred rather than as an instruction issued to everybody afterwards.
And I want to be careful here, because this verse gets used badly. It is not a rule that says a believer must pool his property, and it is not a warrant for anybody to ask you for what is in your shed, and there is no organization on earth that has a claim on your tools because of this sentence. Nothing in this article is asking you for anything and nothing ever will.
Hear this in your own garden. You are not a suspicious man, and the written word is what settles it. Scripture puts the togetherness first and lets everything else follow from it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who grew you in a house where the only mechanism was a hook to stop the door banging.
Now let me name what the padlock is doing, because it is not fear and calling it fear would insult a man who walks his own street after dark without a thought.
It is a rule that outlived its case.
You made a decision under real conditions and it was the right decision under those conditions, and then the conditions ended, and the decision did not, because decisions do not expire on their own. Nothing ever comes along and tells you the reason has gone. It just quietly goes, and the arrangement carries on running for thirty years.
That is not a character flaw. That is how every precaution anybody has ever taken behaves, and the only way one ever comes off is that somebody stands in a lane and counts sheds.
Hear this too, and let it land at that door. You are not being asked to be careless, and Scripture is what says so. What is written describes a togetherness that people were already living in rather than issuing an instruction about property, and the Spirit of God has never once required a man to prove his trust by taking a risk he does not understand.
And here is the part that is actually costing you, and it is not the tools.
Nobody on that street has ever asked you for anything.
They ask each other. You have watched it, over the fence, for years: a strimmer going one way and a wallpaper table coming back the other. Nobody has ever knocked at number fourteen, and it is not because they dislike you, because they like you a great deal and you know it. It is because there is a padlock the size of a fist on the door and it has been answering for you every day for years. The written word puts the togetherness at the front of that verse, and the Holy Spirit has had you on this street liked by every one of them the whole time.
So this week the lock comes off.
Not for ever, and nobody is asking you to leave your shed open for the rest of your life or to be a different kind of man about your property. One week. You can put it back on the following Sunday and this article will not say a word about it.
And there is a second half, because the lock coming off on its own changes nothing, since nobody knows it is off.
You tell one neighbor. One. The one over the fence you talk to most, and you say something like: the long ladder is in the shed if you ever want it, the door is open, help yourself.
Then go inside.
The written word puts the togetherness first and lets the holding follow, and the Holy Spirit grew you in a house where the only mechanism on the door was a hook to stop it banging, so nothing about a week without a padlock asks you to pretend the bad week never happened.
Thirty years. Different town. Different street. Nothing has gone from that garden in all the time you have lived in it, and the lock has been answering the door for you the whole while, and this week somebody gets to hear you instead.
Declare this over yourself
Say these at the shed door with the padlock in your hand. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and the Holy Spirit grew you in that house according to the written word, so the standing you speak from was never built out of what is secured. Whether the week passes quietly or somebody actually knocks, the outcome is His to decide, and it is never a measure of a man who lost something that mattered a very long time ago.
- Padlock I put on after one bad week a very long time ago, you are not sense and you are coming off this week. Scripture says all that believed were together and had all things common, and the togetherness stands first in that verse and everything else follows it.
- Rule that outlived its case by thirty years, get off this door, in the name of Jesus. The written word never once required a man to prove anything by a risk he does not understand, and the Spirit of God grew me in a house where the only mechanism was a hook.
- Lord, You put the being together at the front of that sentence, and Your Spirit has had me on this street for years without one thing going missing, exactly as it is written. I am taking the lock off for a week and telling the man over the fence where the ladder is.
Acts 2:44
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
