Tuesday, July 2, 2013

What to pray for after being arrested for preaching Jesus

Walking, Leaping, and Praising God (Acts 3:1-26)

    What an exciting miracle God did through Peter and John. As many great things as there are to say about the miracle, the thing that catches my eye is how Peter used it as a platform to preach the gospel. The book of acts records several sermons. This is the second one and both have been by Peter so far. In both he has preached the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus (the gospel) and the need for repentance. In both he has used the scriptures to make his points. Sounds like a good pattern of preaching to follow to me. Peters first sermon saw 3000 saved and added to the church. This second sermon saw 5000 men saved (Acts 4:4). A guy could get spoiled with results like that.

Arrested for being a witness (Acts 4:1-22)

    I guess in our day and time it is hard to imagine being arrested for sharing your faith, although I think it is become more and more believable all the time. When I read what the apostles and early Christians suffered for there faith it makes me ashamed of the way I pull back so many times. They boldly shared even when arrested that Jesus was the resurrected savior and that there is no other name under heaven whereby men may be saved.
    When the rulers saw their boldness they knew they had been with Jesus. I wander how widely known we would be for our boldness. We must be careful because there can be a fine line between boldness and arrogance. When threatened that they must stop speaking in the name of Jesus, they simply stated that they must obey God rather than man. Do we see our decision to share our faith or hold our tongue as the difference between obeying God or yielding to man?

What to pray for after being arrested for preaching Jesus (Acts 4:23-37)

    You might think that they would have prayed for protection, the death of their enemies, wisdom about where to run and hide, but instead they prayed for boldness. God help us not to be arrogant, but to be bold. God show us the way that we can TELL THE WORLD SHAMELESSLY!

Brother Scott

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