The Courage of the Cowardly

So I have not blogged in quite awhile, yet the Lord impressed on me something that needs to be journaled.  As I was preparing for my Sunday evening sermon, I was struck by some very thought provoking ideas that seemed to jump of the page to me.  I was reading Acts 4:1-31, which is the account of Peter and John before the religious elite of their day.  They were there because they had healed a 40+ year old cripple beggar.  These religious leaders demanded to know what name (or better yet "by whose authority") did they heal this man.  They courageously declared that it was by the authority of Jesus that this man was healed.  So what exactly jumped off the page?  It was the thought that this was the same group of men that Peter acted like a coward in front of just months earlier.  How does one go from being a coward who denied the Lord three times to being a man of courage proclaiming the Name of Jesus as the only one possessing the authority to save?  Well, verse eight clues us in... "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them..."  Wow, what a difference the Holy Spirit makes.

The second thought that jumped off the page is that they knew the source of their courage.  Immediately after being released they gathered with other believers and prayed.  The ending part of the prayer is so powerful! "Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness (Acts 4:29)."  God answered their prayer and granted them boldness to speak the Word of God with more boldness than they even displayed before the religious council.  They knew where their source of courage came from.  They were dependent on God and did not rely on themselves when the moment for courage was needed.

It is in these very moments of life that our dependence upon God is tested!  Are we going to be people who make excuses for why we don't proclaim the great Name of Jesus in those moments because we are gripped with fear and held captive by our own feeble attempts at courage?  Or in those moments will we be a people who let our own sense of self reliance go, so that God can so powerfully proclaim His own Name through us?  What Peter would you rather be?

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