Daily Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1-2
Scripture Focus: Hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved (1 Thessalonians 2.16a)
Devotional Thought: In many places of the world there are "proselytizing laws" that prohibit Christians from gaining converts from Muslims. In some instances conversion is punishable by death - to both the convert and the witness.
Things were the same in the first century in Judea and Greece. Both Jewish and Gentile authorities did all that they could to hinder Christians from speaking to the Gentiles so that they might be saved. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians to encourage them in their persecution, reminding them that even the Lord Jesus had been killed and his prophets driven out of Jerusalem. It is amazing that in such a climate, Christians prayed, "And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness" (Acts 4.29).
In light of the courageous witness of those early Christians, I think a legitimate question for us today might be, "What hinders me from speaking out for the Lord Jesus?" We might find the excuses to be rather trivial under examination:
I don't want to offend my neighbor... People will laugh at me... Religion is a very personal subject... Everyone should be able to make up their own mind... They don't want to hear...
The list is endless...
But what is at stake? Our excuses lose their appeal when we consider the alternative. Satan wishes to silence Christians from speaking so that others will not be saved! If they are not saved, they will be lost, they will die in their sins, and they will 'perish' (suffer eternal punishment away from God).
What hinders you from speaking?
Prayer: And now, Lord, look upon their threats and upon my fears and excuses, and grant that I may continue to speak your word with all boldness. Amen.
Psalm of the Day: 8 and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place. 9 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also. 10 For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away. 11 Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me. 12 I have been forgotten like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. 13 For I hear the whispering of many-- terror on every side!-- as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. (Psalms 31:8-13)
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