“And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy
servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, By stretching forth
thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy
holy child Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were
assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they
spake the word of God with boldness.”
(Ac 4:29-31 AV)
The
reaction God’s people had to the threatenings against Peter is the right
reaction. Putting myself in their place,
as Peter described the actions and words of the rulers, I might have been
inclined to retreat and regroup. But
what I think motivated these saints was how Peter and the others reported the
facts. If they did so with a spirit of
defeat, then the church would have coward.
However, if Peter stayed true to his personality, he reported the
actions and words of the rulers as a privilege to suffer for the LORD Jesus
Christ.
As
God’s people, we are way to easily discouraged.
We get one polite rejection and we are ready to quit. We knock on a few hundred doors are with no
results and are ready to retreat. We get
so used to retreating that we don’t even recognize and opportunity when we see
on. The other day I was treating some
church members to lunch and the manager was over friendly. On my way out the door he wished me well and
hoped I would come back. It wasn’t a
statement in passing. He actually raised
the level of his voice to share that with me.
Rather than turn around and give him a tract, I was headed out the door
because I had another place I needed to be.
I was expecting a phone call that was certain to come within the next
few minutes or seconds. We miss opportunities
because we are used to giving up too quickly!
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