OUT OF THE BOX

John 15: 26-27 “When the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of me. And you also will bear witness…” Acts 5: 32 “…And we are His witness to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him.” These verses tell us two things. 1. That the Holy Spirit will anoint us to bear witness to Jesus Christ, His Lordship and His kingdom. 2. That the Holy Spirit will ALSO, apart from us, bear witness and give testimony to Jesus. We usually think in terms of Him enabling us to witness, but we should not overlook the “also” in the verses referred to above. We should remember that He will walk beside us to give His own witness. It is this second dimension of testimony that adds power to our sharing the gospel. Below are two examples of how I have seen this happen. In 1971 when Laurel and I were first married we were asked to speak at a youth retreat for a group of high school kids fr...

I remember years ago working on a construction site with my uncle who is a follower of Jesus. He hurt his arm, and the first words out of his mouth were "Praise the Lord!" One of the fellow workers said, "You just hurt your arm, why are you praising the Lord?" His reply was, "I could have broken it." How often in our unpleasant situations do we fail to give thanks that the Lord did not lay on us more than we could bear? If we look closely at the storms we face, we will see the silver lining traced by the hand of God and which represents a small glimpse of the greater glory of His presence and working that is hidden in and behind the apparent darkness. The sparrows do fall, but Jesus said that not one of them is forgotten before God, and not one of them falls apart from His knowledge. Jesus is reassuring us that the Father, who loves us with a stedfast and everlasting love, is aware of where we are and what we face. Like the sparrow we may face unpleasant s...