Witness

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

I OFTEN HEAR CHRISTIANS SAY, “Well, I share the gospel when the Holy Spirit leads me.” There is some truth here. We want to be led by the Holy Spirit in everything we do. At the same time, we need to remember that the Spirit lives in us for the explicit purpose of spreading the gospel through us. If you have the Holy Spirit in you, you can officially consider yourself led to share the gospel! You don’t have to wait for a tingly feeling to go down your spine or a special message to appear from heaven to lead you to tell people about Christ. You just open your mouth and talk about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and you will be carrying out the purpose of Jesus’ presence in you. In other words, when you’re telling others about the wonder of the gospel, you’re carrying out the will of God.

I also hear professing Christians say, “Well, I don’t witness with my words; I witness with my life.” Again, there’s some truth here: We want the character of Christ to be clear in our actions. At the same time, when Jesus told his disciples that they would receive his Spirit and be his witnesses in the world, he wasn’t just calling them to be nice to the people around them. Whether in a courtroom or any other circumstance, the basic function of a witness is to speak. Ten of the eleven apostles who heard Jesus’ words in Acts 1 were martyred—not because they went into the world doing good deeds, but because they witnessed to the Word of God.

God has given us a gospel to believe, a Spirit to empower, and a language to speak for a purpose—a grand, glorious, global, God-exalting purpose that transcends all of history. For the past two thousand years, God has willed to draw people to himself through the proclamation of his Word by the power of his Spirit, and he simply calls each of us to do the same today. When we are faithful to obey his will, he will show himself faithful to bless his Word.

Ask God to give you the courage and the desire to speak about Christ to your unbelieving family members, friends, and neighbors.