29.06.2021
IBC Admin
“Grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus…And when they had prayed the place in which they were gathered together was shaken."
Acts 4:29-31
This week we will be celebrating our nations Independence Day. Many Americans wrongly believe that the Declaration of Independence signed by 56 patriots on July 4th, 1776, was the pivotal point of victory for the United States of America. Actually, it was in some ways just the beginning of a long drawn out war that didn’t end until six years later. Declaring something and fighting for something are two different things.
Most of us are often reluctant to share our faith because we might face rejection or possible conflict. In America, the biggest price we often pay for sharing our faith is ridicule, not imprisonment. We may declare that we are followers of Jesus, but often shrink back when we are called upon to share Him with others.
When we look at the Apostles in Acts, we discover in 5:17-20 that they demonstrate boldness and victory when faced with imprisonment and even death. This boldness came after the church prayed together which is recorded in Acts 4:29-31. Their continued preaching would “put them in public prison.” There were very real costs to their preaching and teaching in Jerusalem.
But the very night they were arrested, an angel from God miraculously releases them. I love the fact that after they were released Acts records them going right back to the temple courts to again preach, where they had just been arrested a day earlier.
They Apostles become examples to us about boldness, courage and perseverance in a culture that is hostile their faith. Hebrews 12:1-2 encourages us this way in light of their example, “since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every weight and sin that so easily entangles and run the race that is set before us with perseverance, setting our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.”
It is easy to declare something but an entirely different thing to fight for it. You cannot live out the Christian faith without understanding that you are in conflict and called to be light to the world around you. We are in conflict with the devil and with the world. But let us gain courage that “greater is He (that is Jesus) in us than he that is in the world.” (John 4:4)