As Christians, we are to be the salt and light that will influence and renew the environment around us for God’s glory. The world around us is changing rapidly – often too rapidly for Christians to keep up with – and not always in Godly ways. As a people who have a relationship with God, we see all the brokenness in this world and feel the Father’s pain. For many, being a Christian can be a lonely or even challenging walk.
We have roles to play. In a legal proceeding, the testimonies of the witnesses are of paramount importance as the relevant information they provide under an oath of truth can determine the outcome of a case. Similarly, we have the power to make an impact as we testify to the world about the Gospel message, convincing them of its truth. We know this from the words of Christ Himself.
In Acts 1:8, Jesus told His disciples that the Holy Spirit would come upon His followers. The Holy Spirit would empower them to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the Earth. God accomplished this through the early Christians. Today we have inherited this calling. What was the secret of the early Christians?
God has always been covenantal. A long time ago, God established a covenant with Abraham. God would bless the nations as He revealed Himself through Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3). When the Israelites were about to enter the Promised Land, God established another covenant with them as a people consecrated unto Him to be a living witness to the other kingdoms around them (Deuteronomy 4:5-8). In sending Christ, God has again called a people to be His witnesses. And this time, the door had been opened for a direct relationship between Christ’s followers and God’s Spirit. This was what the Great Commission was.
The early disciples did not go into the world alone. They had the Holy Spirit with them, and their testimony came through the Holy Spirit. As a fruit of this, they also did miracles in the same way Jesus had – not through their own power, however, but through the power of the Holy Spirit.
But they also encountered much opposition and persecution.
Jesus had also foretold that while the Church is a witnessing body, the task would not be easy. He said in John 15:18-25 that the world would hate His disciples because they had hated Him. The world had not known who Jesus was and who had sent Him. But the early Christians endured and many of them became martyrs for their testimonies. Already knowing what they would have to undergo through Jesus’s foretelling, they testified despite the opposition. This was the secret of the early Church and it was the reality.
Every one of us can actually be a witness for Christ, and it was not just for the early Christians. As we have seen, it can be very challenging. However, our number one goal in life as Christians should be Christlikeness. When Jesus came to walk among men more than 2000 years ago, He expressed a visible image of the Father. Jesus was the pioneer of our faith, and He came to show us an example of how we should live and conduct ourselves. Like the early Christians, if we identify with Christ, we are to follow in His footsteps.
The world is not impressed by all the outward displays of Christian-ese. We cannot leave an impact through our music or bumper stickers or because we follow a code of conduct. Rather, it is when people can see a genuine and authentic outflowing of the Holy Spirit. And this can only come when we submit to the Spirit and ‘allow’ Him to renew our minds and spirits. Again like the early Christians, we need the Holy Spirit to be with us. This involves a conscious choice, commitment, and a genuine desire to change, and for many of us, there may be a cost of being a disciple. This theme has run throughout the Bible from the earliest days.
But the Bible also offers much encouragement. We must remember that a great cloud of witnesses had endured similar hardships and that they had overcome and moved forward through faith. Secondly, we must remember that the awesome power of God’s grace is by our side; this becomes visible when we remember what God has done in Christ and the power of the Gospel message. Thirdly, we are encouraged to remember that this earthly place is not our home and that God is always sovereign and more powerful than anyone who can harm us (Matthew 10:28). And significantly, we must remember that we are not alone and that the Holy Spirit is always by our side and that He is always at work in all circumstances.
The Church has often progressed in extremely difficult times, even from some who were determined to wipe out Christianity from the face of the Earth. Such progress demonstrates the authenticity and power of the Gospel message and proofs that God’s grace is strong in our weaknesses.
The message we are called to carry and proclaim is primarily one of hope. It is about an Almighty and loving God who is on a mission to reconcile and redeem us from a world broken and separated from Him by sin, back unto a relationship with Him. He has been so from the earliest days of the Bible. He will still be our loving Father the day we each of us meet Him in our eternal homes.
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