Today's Reading: Acts 4:5-12
Are you familiar with the song, Salvation Belongs to Our God? I actually sang this song on a CD once. Well, me and a couple hundred other people! We were at summer Bible camp and recorded our Friday night singing, which was then put onto a CD and sold as a fundraiser for the camp. It's a great song and one of my fondest memories.In fact, I remember that they wanted us to sing the song sitting down so that the microphones wouldn't pick up any movement or shuffling of feet if we stood while singing. But we just couldn't do it. This isn't a song that you sing sitting down.
I imagine Peter felt a little like that in Acts 4. As this chapter opens, the Sanhedrin has arrested Peter and John and demanded that they answer by what power or what name they were teaching and healing. Verse 8 says, "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them..." Somehow I just don't see Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, sitting down to deliver this speech. He goes on to tell them that it is "by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead..." that these miracles have happened. And ends by saying, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
Again, probably not sitting down.
How could he? He was delivering the gospel, the good news, the answer to everyone's troubles. Sometimes I think we take the gospel for granted. It has become a mundane part of our lives. But it wasn't ever mundane to the apostles. They couldn't wait to tell people about Jesus, often regardless of the consequences.
It'd be nice if we could bottle feelings like the one I had at camp the year we recorded this song. But then again, we do have the Holy Spirit living in us. If that's not enough to make us stand up and tell others about Jesus, I guess nothing will do it! So who do you know that needs to know the salvation offered through Jesus?
And will you stand up to tell them about it today?
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