Living sacrifice!
Verse for Today: Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Acts 4:29 – Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your Word with great boldness.
God’s children face threats of various kinds as they live to witness to the saving grace of Jesus. Their Christ-likeness becomes a threat to the enemies of gospel. Their faith is a great challenge to the people of this world and to the world system. Their testimony is a forceful threat to the very existence of godlessness in this world. Even when God’s servants speak about peace with God, it is taken as threat to the ungodly life style of the world. So they come to attack God’s children in so many ways. There are physical as well as psychological attacks and threats. These threats are the clear evidence that our testimonies and ministries are hitting the right target. In order to silence us and to weaken our enthusiasm, the enemy uses his agents in the world to intimidate us. These threats are their ways to stop us from living as commanded by the Lord. They insist that we work or run our businesses on the Lord’s Day. They tell us that the expressions we use, like ‘crusade’, ‘spiritual warfare’, ‘victory’, ‘capturing of lives’, ‘holy war’, ‘hell’ and ‘eternal judgment’, in our messages are threatening words. So they connive against our message and our lives. They ridicule us when we live by faith. They try to stop us from praying or preaching in the public. People of other religions can do whatever they want to propagate their faith, but when we utter the name of Jesus, the world gets agitated. They are interested in social reformation and not spiritual revolution. They hate radical Christianity. They find that the best way to stop Christianity from spreading is to threaten and intimidate us to stop living to preach the Word. They try to suppress us psychologically to stop our messages. But we can always go to Him with petitions and prayers to help us overcome these intimidations and to continue to shine for Jesus.
Dear reader, are you a living and public witness to the power of God in your life? Is your life your message about God to the community in which you live? Are you using the available opportunity to take a public stand for Jesus in your community? Are you sticking your neck for the truth that you believe with all your heart? Your Lord is with you to help you live boldly for Him. He knows all about the threats that loom large above your head. He is with you and has appointed a garrison of heavenly hosts around you to protect you and to support you in all possible ways as you stand as His witness. If your desire is to speak about your Lord, you have the privilege to ask the Lord to give you all support to do it. When your Lord is with you, there is no reason for you to be afraid of the enemy who opposes you anyway. The enemy will try to pull you back from active Christian witness through intimidations from your employer, boss, colleagues, business associates, relatives, social organizations and sometimes even through the laws of the land where you dwell. But we must realize that our allegiance is first and foremost to the Lord and to gospel. When we are filled with His Spirit, we will receive boldness to live to testify to the power of God in our lives. At the same time, our prayer life will demonstrate our total dependence on the Lord for the power to live as His witnesses. Let us pray more and desire deeper spiritual lives so that our lives will exemplify the Lord Jesus. Let us seek after the boldness of Christ to fill our hearts and lives to witness to others with courage and confidence and not be afraid of the intimidations of the world.
Acts 4:31 – After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
Thought for Today
When our hearts and lives are filled with the character of Christ and the power of His Spirit, our lives will enjoy the boldness to testify to His grace.
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