Just
Go: Acts Chapter 3-4 (June 3-June 9)
Day One:
Thank you for joining me again this week as
we continue our walk through the book of Acts with chapters three and
four. I pray that last week’s devotions
were a blessing to you and your family and pray the same for this week.
As I read through Chapters three and
four I found that God put one word on my heart.
Boldness. Bold is what
Jesus Christ was, is, and will forever be.
It is what we should pray for and aspire to be daily. It is the power that sets us free from the
bonds of the life of this world. There
was no greater boldness than when Jesus — God in the flesh — humbled himself
and endured a slave’s death on the cross to save humanity from its heinous
sins.
Understandably boldness isn’t so easy;
otherwise I suppose it wouldn’t be bold at all.
It is definitely a particular struggle in my faith walk at the current
moment. I am an introvert. In new or uncomfortable settings I am very
quick to observe and very slow to speak.
Talking with new people and finding the right words to say in a face-to-face
conversation can be challenging at times.
This is both a blessing and a curse.
It has been a blessing in the sense that for the most part, I am very
careful about the words that come out of my mouth. Conversely, it has been a curse because there
have definitely been times when God has called for me to speak and my over
analysis of the situation has caused me to ignore his gentle calling.
The question is, “What is the enemy of boldness?” I believe that you will read chapters three
and four and come to the same conclusion that I have. It is fear that incapacitates us. Fear of what others will think. Fear of upsetting your best friend. Fear of correcting our children because we
might say the wrong thing and lose them forever. But wait there is a solution! It says in chapter four that all the
believers came together to pray for the boldness to speak the Gospel. Their prayer was so powerful that the place
in which they were praying was shaken!
Boldness is something we are called
to as a group of believers. It is not
something we have to do in isolation. As
Hebrews 10:24 encourages us “to spur one another on to love and good deeds”, so
also should we encourage one another in boldness to spread the gospel of
Christ. Before we dive into chapter
three with tomorrow’s devotion, I would like to leave you with a quote that
really spoke to me about the importance of Christian community in acting out in
boldness. In the historical-fiction
novel Gates of Fire by Steven
Pressfield, a Spartan soldier recounts the infamous battle of Thermopylae. In the midst of marching into battle it reads,
“But he heard the roar of his friends, his soldiers, his comrades behind him,
and then all of the selfishness went away, and he realized he would sacrifice
himself for them.” Thank you and go with
God and be at peace.
- Kyle Bogner
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