Witnesses

"You will be My witnesses." Acts 1:8...."The disciples were not to be preoccupied with the times and dates of the Kingdom. They were to be preoccupied with the King.......Are we making the mistake of watching for His second coming instead of being evidence for His first coming?" Chris Tiegreen

There has been a common thread down through the history of the church and our relation to the events of the world. In times of deep darkness, and this world has seen so many, there comes a great deal of talk about His soon return. In the 5th century, as the Huns overran the western Roman empire, many were convinced it pointed to His soon return. This has continued through the centuries, and countless sincere believers were sure the unfolding of the First and Second World War and the rampant evil of Naziism, meant His return was upon us. All of this is understandable, just as it is concerning what we see taking place before our eyes today. Evil in the western culture has been unleashed. Lawlessness is being honored, while those charged with keeping the law are reviled. We are not wrong to wonder if this time, we are very near His return. What we must guard against, and in this many fail, is that we don't become so absorbed in the conditions around us, and how they point to His coming back, that we miss Him in it. When we allow this to happen, the result for us is the opposite of how He wishes us to look for His return. We do so not focused on the darkness and its author, but focused on He who is Light and Life itself. The first will paralyze us in either complacency or fear. The second fills us with hope, joy, and the power to be a witness of His resurrection and life.

If you take the name and person of Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, then what is your witness in this time? Our witness is to be that as the darkness grows and deepens, the light of His life within us is to shine ever brighter. So brightly that no matter how suffocating that darkness may become, it is powerless to extinguish His Light within us. Indeed, that light is mightier than all the power of darkness coming against it. It literally pushes back the darkness. Are you and I, by our witness today, pushing back the darkness, or have we allowed ourselves to be disabled by it?

The world Jesus sent His disciples into as witnesses was a deeply dark one. It has always been a deeply dark one. Yet His expectation was that they would shine so brightly for Him that the darkness would have no option but to retreat before it. He has sent us with the same mission. He has sent us to be His witnesses. Will we fulfill the calling, or, will we simply wait for Him to take us home? For the believer, for you and for me, there is only one choice. Is it also your choice?

Blessings,
Pastor O