Sunday, April 9

Sunday, April 9

Reading:  Acts 4:23-31

Key Verse: Acts 4:29, 31 (NIV) — 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 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.

Devotional Thought:  Imagine how this story would have turned out if the disciples were timid.  Imagine if they backed down at the threats.  Imagine if they just gave up at the resistance.

A key to the success of the early church, and a key to every revival throughout Christian history, is boldness.  Courage in the face of adversity. The conviction of a truth that runs so deep that nothing can deter you from speaking that truth.  A commitment to truth over fear.

Boldness does not come naturally to most of us, and it may not have come naturally to the early Christians. I’m pretty convinced it didn’t.  One false assumption is that these early believers had no fear.  That’s far from the truth.  It wasn’t easy for them, but they knew how to overcome their fears.  Prayer.

They recognized that the boldness and courage they needed would only come from God.  The boldness required to stand up to adversity and pressures to be silent would not come from within themselves, but from heaven itself.

Evangelistic boldness comes only with desperate prayer.  And when they confidently and sincerely prayed, God showed up and gave them a boldness they didn’t know they could possibly ever experience.  Their meeting place was shaken and boldness flowed from their once timid lips.

Action:  Don’t think you’re unspiritual because you’re afraid.  Don’t think talking about Jesus comes naturally to everyone.  In your fear pray to God for boldness and expect great things.