As I was studying Acts 4 this week, I was convicted about something in my personal life as well as the corporate life of the church. It all started with a question. What would you do if the government told you to no longer preach or teach in the name of Jesus? Or, what would you do if the government no longer allowed you to read your Bible (silently or otherwise), in a public place? What would you do if there was a law that said we couldn't openly carry a Bible, that it had to remain hidden? (In our trip to Jerusalem last winter, we had to conceal our Bibles in order to go to the Wailing Wall. I remember thinking, that could never happen in the U.S. could it?). When I was meditation on Acts 4: 23-31, it's interesting to see what the church didn't do.
They didn't organized a rally to affect public opinion. They didn't stage a march or a sit-in at the temple. They didn't write op-ed pieces and submit them to the paper. They didn't take an opinion poll to prove that 73% of the people surveyed disapproved of the Sanhedrin’s policy.
The church met and prayed! It was convicting because I'm not sure that's the first thing we think about when threatened, or mistreated or when we face cultural opposition. PRAY.
Their prayer did not consist of complaining to God, but praising God. They didn't ask for protection, they prayed for power. They asked God for boldness and for miracles. And God showed up and shook them up and it affected their community and God received glory.
Would prayer be the first thing you think of if you were told not to speak about Jesus anymore?
Read Acts 4 and ask God to shake you up, I did.

In times like these we need to pray,

Pastor Tim