Tag: bold

Be Bold

Today’s reading is Acts 4.

Maybe the marketing team at Doritos, with their tag line encouraging people to be bold by eating Doritos, are big fans of Acts 4. The theme of this chapter is about being bold and willing to share the Gospel despite the risks.

Acts 4:13 says people were “astonished’ in hearing the boldness of Peter and John. The disciples prayed for boldness to speak the Gospel in Acts 4:29, and we are told in Acts 4:31 that prayer was answered. They were “filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the Word of God in boldness.”

I’ve written on this before, but I’ll say it again. One of the most convicting factors for me personally in the truth of the Gospel is that the same guys who ran for their life, hid in locked rooms, and denied knowing Jesus right before, during, and after his crucifixion to protect their own lives now won’t be quiet about the Gospel. They saw the gruesome death of Jesus on the cross. They knew the same thing could be done to them. There is only one reason they would keep sharing the Gospel. They knew Jesus was dead, and then they saw and interacted with Him alive after His Resurrection. What is there to fear when you don’t fear death itself?

The Jewish Council of leaders, sometimes called the Sanhedrin, threatened them to not to speak about Jesus and their fearless and bold response in Acts 4:20 was, “for we cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard.”  Their lives were on the line, yet they chose Jesus. How many of us fear our lives being taken for speaking the Gospel? Probably no one reading this unless you are in another country outside the US. So, what are we afraid of? Is it losing our job? Yes that’s bad, but it’s not losing our life. Are we afraid what someone will think of us? That is pretty childish and selfish when what others think of us is more important to us than where someone will spend eternity.

I don’t think one single person’s political view has been changed because of something one of their friends/connections posted on social media. Yet my social media is full of so many political posts I don’t want to get on it, and I’m tempted to drop it.

Think of the good that would happen in the world if Christians were just as passionate about posting about Jesus as they were about politics. Instead of making the blood boil of those who disagree with you, it would lead them closer to the One who can give them a peace that passes human understanding. There is a lot of talk about peace now, and rightly so, and yet Jesus is the only one who can give us eternal peace.

Don’t feel you are smart enough or know the Bible well enough to share the Gospel? Remember me saying people were “astonished” in Acts 4:13? It says right before that the reason is because Peter and John were “uneducated, common men.” This past week our pastor of Eastview Christian Church, Brandon Grant, shared the two original Greek words for these were agrammatos, meaning illiterate, and idiotes, meaning ordinary. Or as he said, you could say the translation says they were illiterate, idiots! Yet we are told in Acts 2:31 that three thousand believers were added and here in Acts 4:4 the number that came to believe was five thousand. Wow. The power of God and the Holy Spirit we as believers have living within us is incredible.

Let us be bold my friends despite our insecurities. The eternal resting place of others’ souls are relying on it.

Bold In Our Faith

Today’s reading is Acts 7:44-8:3.

Our children wrapped up the school year at Cornerstone Christian Academy the last week in May. Our oldest Deklin finished 3rd grade and his teacher gave them a sheet to complete with some reflection questions to wrap up the year. One of the questions the kids were asked was who their favorite person in the Bible was. Deklin said Stephen which I found interesting because he is not someone I can recall us talking about at home. Apparently, he is learning something at school even though most days when you ask what he learned today he says he doesn’t know! I’m sure many reading this can relate. He said the reason for choosing Stephen was his bravery to boldly proclaim the Gospel knowing he likely would be killed which he ultimately was.

As the saying goes I guess, “The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.” While I don’t think I would have answered Stephen if asked the same question as Deklin in 3rd grade (not even knowing who Stephen was), at a young age I can remember reflecting on my faith and wondering if I was asked if I believed Jesus was the Son of God who gave His life for me and rose on Easter in facing a life or death situation based on my answer, would I boldly proclaim, “Yes?” The quick answer in my mind was absolutely I would, but deep down I knew it would not be easy. While there is no doubt Christians are persecuted in different ways in the US today and sadly even still killed in other countries, most of us thankfully will never have to face this life and death situation. What Stephen did was incredibly brave. By choice he was out proclaiming the Gospel voluntarily so people would know who Jesus was. And he did so to the same people who killed Jesus after seeing what they did to Him.

This should cause us to reflect on our boldness for the Gospel as well. Most people run for the hills at the mention of doing any sort of street ministry to share the Good News, even though physical danger is unlikely here in the US. While street ministry is great, our boldness for God doesn’t have to be even that extreme. It can come in a one on one conversation with a friend or acquaintance. Or, it can come in the little moments and decisions. When something bad happens to someone, do we give our sympathy and say we are “sorry and will be thinking about them?” Or do we say, “I will pray for you.” Better yet, do we have even more boldness and impact and ask, “Can I pray with you right now?” People have prayed for me right on the spot when going through some health challenges and let me tell you it is powerful. Do we ask if we can pray at a gathering of friends, or how about a work gathering? How about this simple one..it’s easier to pray with our children…but do we ask to  pray with our spouse before going to sleep? Sadly, I’ve chickened out on that one and these others many times.

While I still believe if I faced possible death for professing my faith I would do so, Satan wins when I hold back in some of these “little” moments above and others. Today, I pray that we can learn from Stephen and not only profess our faith in big ways, but win the little battles in other ways to defeat the Devil and impact others for the glory of God and His Kingdom.

Will you join me in being a more bold witness to our faith and relationship with Jesus this week?

Show me Your Glory

A few years ago I was part of a women’s bible study called Seamless. This study guides you through the entire Bible, start to finish, showing the connections of God’s plan for us, from Creation to Jesus, to the Early Church, and everything in between. It showed the seamlessness of the Bible, and how it all fits together when you look at the bigger plan of salvation. I absolutely LOVED this study! For so many years I felt like the Old Testament was a bunch of separate Sunday School stories that were anything but seamless. I didn’t understand the timelines or eras, and while I knew some of the main characters and plots, I didn’t have it “mapped out” and how it all points to Jesus.

In the last month of Bible Journal entries we have moved from Kings to Prophets. Thanks for following along with us as we uncover these early leaders in the Old Testament. If you take a step back, you can see that God’s people have been led by Priests, Judges, Kings, and Prophets, each role spanning different time periods and for different reasons. God used the prophets to guide His people back to him. Stick with us – it really does all come together and point to Jesus!

Today I get to introduce you to Ezekiel. He (and other Israelites) have been living in exile for five years in Babylon, at the hand of King Jehoiachin. The next few days we will cover more scripture from Ezekiel – and heads up, it gets pretty interesting.

Chapter 1 he leads right off with a vision that God gave him, of the glory of God. Take a few minutes and read it. Do you need a pen and paper to draw out what he is describing, to keep it all straight? All the features, and body parts and animals? I’m not a bible scholar or dream interpreter…and it’s hard to know what to make of all of this! I read this several times and I thought and prayed… Okay Lord, what do you want me to learn from this?

I’d truly be guessing if I tried to share some big theological explanation of what his vision could symbolize and mean. When I was studying and digging deeper into this chapter, I found a lot of smart opinions and guesses out there. If you’re into that kind of stuff, your bible may have a lot of cool footnotes, or google and dig around the web. When I did an image search for ‘Ezekiel 1 Vision Picture of God’s Glory’ it was crazy to see all of the different ways artists interpreted Ezekiel’s description – the picture in my mind was completely different! I also found it fascinating how one source compared verse ten’s four faces (man, lion, ox, eagle) to Jesus. Jesus is fully man, he is king and victorious like a lion, he is a servant and sacrifice like an ox, and he transcends and is spiritually sovereign like the eagle. Chapters like this leave me curious and hungry to understand more – heaven, come quick!

There were also two things I learned about Ezekiel that really encouraged me:

First, Ezekiel is BOLD. And like I said – STAY TUNED – there’s more coming. He’s clearly being directed by the Lord, and has no qualms about telling the Israelites every detail of what he just saw. They’re living in exile, and God is using Ezekiel to share His message with His people. What message does God have for you to share? Maybe it’s not an indescribable being from a vision, maybe it’s your own life experiences. Maybe it’s not a message for a people group living in exile.. maybe it’s something God has for you to share with your family, a group of teens at your church, or some co-workers. I’m encouraged to be BOLD, even at the risk of sounding a little loony.

Second, Ezekiel is reverent. Verse 28 tells us that when he sees all of this he falls on his face. He didn’t run and hide in fear. He didn’t look the creature in the eye or give him a high five. He went to the ground, face down, to show his humility, awe, worship, and adoration. Have you had those fall to your knees or go face down moments in your faith journey? Those deeply spiritual moments you can always go back to, that can draw your heart to worship and praise? Whether the circumstances were tragic or triumphant – your only response was one of complete surrender?

I can go back to some of those moments in time in my life, like when I first made a commitment to follow Christ, or when my daughter came out of spinal cord surgery at five and a half months old. Remembering and reliving those moments of complete praise and surrender draw my heart closer to the Lord.  Third Day has a song called Show Me Your Glory, and I love this part of the chorus:

Show me your glory
Send down your presence
I wanna see your face
Show me your glory
Majesty shines about you
I can’t go on with you Lord

We don’t have to wait for heaven to experience the glory of God – what a gift! Let’s ask God to help us see His glory today!