I continue to be amazed at how God has adopted me as His child! I know me and I know how far short I fall in being acceptable to God! Yet what I do know is that He sent His Son to take my place and through what His Son achieved on the cross at Calvary I can now be one of His children! All I had to do was to accept this gift of salvation, confess and repent of my sins and entrust my life into His hands. Someone in my early childhood and teenage years shared this with me. They displayed much love and patience with me and told me all about Jesus. And at the age of 18 it suddenly all made sense and I took the necessary steps and my life has never been the same since.
I soon learned that as God’s adopted child I was given certain responsibilities. One responsibility was a simple one – to tell others what had happened to me! So I started my new life as a child of God sharing the message of the gospel of Jesus. I did this at college, on the football field, with my family and friends and of course in my local church – I became a Sunday School teacher! To be honest I could not help but tell others about Jesus! Now 40 years on, I still get excited about telling others about Jesus – perhaps without the youthful drive – but still with joy in my heart. Sadly, sometimes I need a kindly reminder that I have become lazy and even indifferent to the cause of Christ!
I often feel as though God has asked me to be a partner in His business! My job is to advertise His product and tell others how great this product is. Of course this may sound as though I trivializing the gospel. I do not mean to do this. But isn’t this exactly what we have been asked to do? To share what we know about God’s love for us humans and how He desires us all to come into His family? Peter and John and the early disciples knew exactly what they had to do, so they did it no matter where they were and no matter the consequences. Peter said it like this as he stood before a rather angry group of community leaders, “As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Is the same for you? Can you say, “As for me, I cannot help speak about what I know and who I know?”