Scripture: Acts 18.  

OBSERVATION
(What is God saying here?)

Acts 18:4-6 (NLT)

4 Each Sabbath found Paul at the synagogue, trying to convince the Jews and Greeks alike.

5 And after Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul spent all his time preaching the word. He testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. 6 But when they opposed and insulted him, Paul shook the dust from his clothes and said, “Your blood is upon your own heads—I am innocent. From now on I will go preach to the Gentiles.”

APPLICATION
(How Can I apply what God is saying here to my circumstances today?)

I believe that when we seek to convince, or persuade someone about something, it is a lot more passionate than merely mentioning something in passing. For example, I might lecture my child all day about how they should be careful to look both ways before crossing the road, but if I am watching when they attempt to cross the road and I see an oncoming truck speeding down the road, I will have a whole lot more passion about running out to protect them, or shouting to them to run rather than play around. The urgency will be there to convince them, or persuade them to hurry. In reading verse 4 I got that picture about the passion of Paul’s preaching. I believe that he was truly frustrated with their unbelief and he was giving his every effort to convince them otherwise, in other words, it appears like he was giving about 150%. My, if only we had that kind of passion when we teach a class of young ones that we want to know better, or the older ones who have chosen to follow the ways of this wicked world instead of the Savior that gave His all for us. And what about those that think they are safe, because they come from a heritage of Christian pastors or leaders, these are extremely hard to convince, because they believe that just like dad was saved and went to heaven, so will they. Bottom line is that if we went behind the pulpit, or if we went into a Sunday School class with a heart to ‘convince’ rather than out of a feeling of following a written script so that we could get the job over with, and move on to the next job, perhaps we could see more souls won for the Lord every week. What if we took that on as our personal motto each day, to convince the lost that cross our paths that they really need to know the Savior that is Lord of our lives? Wow, there will be a great revival in the land!

PRAYER
(With God’s help, what am I going to do differently today because He said it?)

Father You know better than we ourselves, how content we have become to just do our job and move on to the next thing. You know how content we have become with ourselves, and how uncaring we have become about those friends that cross our path and do not know You. Yes, they are about to walk a dangerous road with the risk of oncoming traffic, and we let them go ahead, many times without even a warning. I know that You are a patient God, but Lord Jesus, please help me/us to stop procrastinating and accepting the norm from these friends. We know the impending danger, please give us the guts, the enthusiasm about our own faith, the urgency to convince or persuade them so that they may safely walk this path down here with all confidence, knowing that on that day when You call them home to be with You, that there will be no doubt about their eternal destiny.

 

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