Tell the People Everything

If an angel came to you in the middle of the night and spoke these words:

 “Go and take your place in the temple area, and tell the people everything about this life,” could you do it? (Acts 5:20)

 

Are you living “this life?”

What would you “tell the people?”

This happened to Peter and the other apostles of Jesus.  They were in jail and an angel opened the prison doors and, leading them out, gave them a job to do.

After they were taken back to face the court officers because they were found teaching in the temple area just like they had been instructed to do by the angel, they were eventually flogged and released. 

The Acts of the Apostles (Chapter 5, Verse 42) tells us that then, “all day long, both at the temple and in their homes, they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the Messiah, Jesus.”

You see, they just couldn’t stop themselves.  They had such an amazing person to tell the people about, a message that they had been living and suffering for, that it just wouldn’t have been in them to accept the Sanhedrin’s order to “stop teaching in that name.”

As Peter and the apostles told the high priest, “We must obey God rather than men.”

So back to my questioning.  Let’s say you are a faith-filled follower of Jesus.  You regularly go to church, read scripture, pray and do what your church expects you to do.  You know, the basics.

Is the life you are living the “this life” that the angel is referring to?  

This is a significant question.  

Are you dependent on God for the strength, will and wisdom to do whatever it is you do every day?  Are you grateful?  Do you love when you don’t feel like loving? 

Are you, with a sense of urgency, spreading God’s message of salvation?

What would your definition of “this life” be?

The life of a Christian evangelizer assumes that you have something to tell people.  Notice that Peter and the apostles had to be freed from the jail in which they found themselves in order to do what the angel asked.

Sometimes our metaphorical “jail” might be our feelings of inadequacy about sharing the faith due to our lack of knowledge.  Or it could be that we are lukewarm, or actually disinterested altogether.

Maybe you have come to realize that, like the apostles, you need to have the doors to your personal prison opened so that you can “tell the people everything.”

Like us, Peter and the gang were imperfect men, just doing their best to live their life fully in the Lord.

Good for you if you are on fire for the Lord and completely “get” what the reference to “this life” is all about.

But if that is not the case, you might want to ask God to release you from the chains that are holding you back so that you, too, can “ take your place in the temple area, and tell the people everything about this life.”

Janet Cassidy

Janetcassidy.com

Janetcassidy.blubrry.net