Note: This post is associated with a call to 50 days of prayer at Bethel Church of Houston in association with the Houston Church Planting Network. You can find the HCPN daily devotion by following this link: Day 6.
Day six of our 50 days of prayer comes on a glorious Friday in Houston. Most every morning I am awakened, slightly before sunrise, by the sound of doves calling to one another as if they were announcing the coming of the sun. This morning, as if on cue from the doves, the sun began to rise and the light to awaken the beauty of the day. Of course, the doves did not summon the sun. The sun calls forth the song of the doves.
This morning we turn again to Evan Roberts challenge to the congregation in Wales in the early 1900s. His fourth plea was, “you must confess your faith in Christ publicly.”
Confessing your faith publicly takes boldness. It takes boldness now. It took boldness in the day of Evan Roberts. It took boldness in the day of the Apostle Paul. Listen to Paul’s prayer request, “Pray for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given to me that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.”
How many times is such a prayer request shared in our community groups, in our prayer meetings, in our corporate prayer, when the Elders pray, when the church staff prays, when the ministry teams pray?
Many of us do not share the gospel because we have poor theology. Here is what I mean. We feel inadequate. We think we need more training. We are concerned about questions we might not be able to answer. Here is our theological problem: We do not believe in the sovereignty of God and the power of the gospel that transcends our abilities.
Listen to Paul’s perspective on the the power of the gospel and how it motivated him:
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.
Romans 1:16
Listen again to Paul on where he put his confidence:
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
That fires me up! God is ready to unleash the power of the Spirit at the proclamation of the good news, and I do not have to be the great orator to see his power at work. In fact, he seems to take joy in working through those who are inadequate for the task.
Remember those doves and the sunrise this morning? Like those doves. the follower of Jesus does not summon the Son. The Son calls forth the song of his people. Pray for boldness to “confess our faith in Christ publicly.”
