Latest / The Daily Word / October 15 – Pray for Boldness
Transcript
- Cory: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good wee hours of the night. Whenever you're joining us, welcome to the Daily Word Podcast from Lakeshore Christian Fellowship. My name is Corey Barnes, and it is my privilege to pastor our Katapa Campus, and I'm excited to be sitting down with you for another Daily Word episode where we're going to be doing a devotion from the New Testament portion of our life journal Bible reading plan. Today is October. The 15th. And today's reading is Acts chapter 4. This chapter tells the story of when John and Peter were arrested and brought before the religious leaders of the day. They examined them, they asked them questions, and ultimately these leaders could find nothing against. Peter and John. So they told him, hey, stop, stop, stop that preaching in Jesus' name stuff. Stop it. Stop it right now. But but but you can go. But you can but but stop that preaching. And John and Peter go back and they gather with the other believers, and they have a lot to say amongst themselves. It was really cool that instead of allowing this arrest to be discouraging to them. You have to remember, like, this is the group of people that not that long ago had seized Jesus and had taken him to Pontius Pilate and ultimately led to his crucifixion. Like those are the same guys that that John and Peter are running up against, and instead of allowing the arrest to discourage them, they actually take it as encouragement to continue preaching the gospel, and they ask the Lord for something that they need in order to do that. Let's take a look at verses twenty-nine And 30. Now, Lord, look on their threats and grant to your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word by stretching out your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus. See, instead of allowing this whole circumstance to get them quieted, to to to take their zeal. And they come to the Lord and they actually take it as encouragement. They say, you know what? We see these guys' threats. So Lord, we're gonna ask you for boldness in this discouragement, in this threat. And we're gonna ask you to help us to actually do more of what they're telling us not to do. Help us to do it more boldly and with more power. That way we can see more results and more people come to know you. You know, I think about the fact that that a lot of the times you and I we're facing in this world the thought of of telling people about Jesus, the the the worst case scenario of doing that is often a lot less daunting than what John and Peter faced. through being arrested by the religious leaders. And yet, despite the fact that that the cost is not as high in our lives, we often allow the the thought process, the the fears, the worries, the anxiety about just talking to people about Jesus and sharing our faith, we allow that to discourage us and we aren't bold enough to engage those conversations and and share our faith with people. But we have the disciples, we have John and Peter's example to follow. That obviously they realized somewhere in the midst of all this that they needed more than what they had. So they came to the Father and they asked him to give them boldness. So I think that that's the biggest takeaway that I can have from this chapter. Is that when we are facing situations where we have opportunities to share God's love with people, to tell people about Jesus, to to share our testimony, what we know to be true about who Jesus is, and those fears and those worries and and the enemy's voice starts coming in and raging against us and telling us how much it's gonna cost us to have that conversation, how how they're gonna just spurn us and hate us and And they're gonna be enemies towards us, or what if they ask questions you don't know how to answer, or all the different little tactics that the enemy has. We can recognize that voice just like John and and Peter recognize the voice of the religious leaders, that it's not the voice of Jesus that's voicing that, and we can come to Jesus, we can ask him for boldness to be able to share the gospel. With this hurting, dying world powerfully in ways that carry signs and wonders and miracles and healings, we can ask for boldness and we can believe that the Lord will provide it. We see this example recorded for all of church history for all of eternity of this prayer, asking for boldness, and that is the prayer that I would encourage you to pray. Today. That is how I would like us to end today in our prayer is by asking the Lord for boldness. So let's pray. Father, I thank you, and I ask you that you would grant your servants that with all boldness we may speak your word by stretching out your hand to heal. And that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus. I pray that you would give us boldness to share the gospel, boldness to share your love with the people around us, boldness to step past those fears and those worries and all those anxieties and all the voices that the enemy would raise against us to step past all that and just boldly tell people about who you are. And what you want to do in their lives. Lord Jesus, we thank you that what you have done is a message that is worth carrying. It is the good news. It is the gospel. I thank you, Lord, for all that you did, and I pray that you would strengthen us and equip us to be able to share our faith with others. I praise you and I thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen.