How Many Times..................

How many times have we had as Christians to give our testimony? To share our story on what God has done for us? To share The Gospel with other people? Only to shrink back and remain silent. Not say a word. Why is that? Are we afraid of what people will think? Will they laugh at us? Call us crazy. Jesus wants us to be bold for Him. To stand up and speak His name and the truth that He gives. I can personally think of a few times when I stood idling my time away, when I heard conversations going on about Jesus, The Bible, Easter and Good Friday. I could have spoken up and probably should have, but, I remained silent. Only to beat myself up over it later. "If only I had said something, done something." I would lament to myself. "You know the Bible and you're a pastor for goodness sakes." My inability to say anything in these situations reminded me of what Jesus said in The Bible.

Matthew 10:33 Living Bible (TLB)
³³ But if anyone publicly denies me, I will openly deny him before my Father in heaven.

To me, by not chiming in, I felt like I was denying Christ. Everything He has done for me. His love, mercy and grace. All on the tip of my tongue, yet nothing came out. Only silence.

How many times has this happened to me. How many times have I had the opportunity to speak out? Well my friends, I hate to say this but, time is running out. We are not going to live forever. We could live to a ripe old age(preferred), or we could die tomorrow (let's hope not). So let's take every opportunity to speak about Jesus. Go and do the Great Commission. Spread His name everywhere.

Matthew 28:18-19 Amplified Bible (AMP)¹⁸ Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority (all power of absolute rule) in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations [help the people to learn of Me, believe in Me, and obey My words], baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

I don't know how many more times I am going to be able to speak publicly about Jesus. Only He knows the hour. Like I said in my last blog post, Life Is Merely A Vapor.

John 9:4 Living Bible (TLB)
⁴ All of us must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent me, for there is little time left before the night falls and all work comes to an end.
When we come to our end, we will not be able to proclaim the name of Jesus, out loud any longer. So let's do it as much as possible. While there is still breath in our lungs.

Amen!