January 23rd

Faith Lift

Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed; and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. And there was great joy in that city. Acts 8:5-8

Do you want to know the biggest lies that Satan tries to sell us on? It really boils down to two of them.

The devil tries to mess you up concerning who you are and whose you are. Who are you? God would never love you. You’ve blown it too bad, gone too far. He could never use you. What are you thinking that you could ever reach the lost? As if people even like you. I mean, just look at you; no one will listen to you.

Does any of that sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so. Do you want to know a powerful way to silence those lies? You get a faith lift.

You realize that it’s not about your abilities, because it’s really God inside of you who matters where that’s concerned. You realize that it’s not about your past, because Jesus paid for it already. You realize that God loves even you, that there was no asterisk by your name when God said that He loved the world so much that He sent His Son to die for it.

And realizing these things, you take up an overarching burden for the lost that supersedes any excuse we could come up with for not reaching them with the gospel.

Just look at Philip in our verses today. Do you remember that only a couple chapters before this, he was just waiting tables? He went from busboy to world-changing, miracle-working missionary in a very short period of time. But some of you might say, Well, Bob, I’m shy. I’m quiet. I could never get up there and do that. I keep to myself. I’m a type-C personality in a type-A world. I am.

Listen, God knows how He made you, and He’s big enough to use you however He made you. But what needs to happen first is for you to be willing, for you to embrace that love for the world that caused Jesus to leave Heaven so that He could save the likes of us. When you embrace that love, that overarching burden for the lost, nothing else will matter anymore because your faith will have lifted from the lies you’ve been told to who you now are in Christ and who He is in you.

Prayer Lord Jesus,

Thank You for the burden You had for me! Thank You for the burden that others had that made them tell me about You. I choose to share that burden for the lost today so that many others will know You through me!

Amen