Monday, March 1, 2010

Acts 17 DEVO: Turning Conversations to Spiritual Things

Chapter 17:
Turning conversations to Jesus is something I’m always wanting to do and yet sometimes have had some pretty rough transitions. Conversations like, “It’s sure hot out…………..It’s hot in hell too, are you going there?~!” are not the most effective transitions. In this chapter Paul gives us a great example of how very naturally to take something cultural and transition into sharing the good news of Jesus.
Before we get there, we see Paul & Silas again preaching Jesus and the message of Christ making some angry. So when it got dark, they left for Berea. We can learn a lot from the Bereans for it says that they “received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” And it tells us that because they did this that many believed! And again, as a result, they run Paul out of town for preaching Jesus.
Paul arrives in Athens and is “distressed to see that the city was full of idols.” His heart is broken for these people and I believe that the Holy Spirit gave him the words of transition in verses 22-23: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” He then proceeds to share Christ and as always, some believe, some sneer and some want to hear more.
SO WHAT?!
*When you heard your pastor preach yesterday, what did you do? Did you fall asleep? Maybe you were bored and acted like you’d heard it before? Let’s be like the Bereans who were eager & excited to hear what GOD had for them! Let’s check out what our pastor says – it helps us grow and keeps them in check. And that’s ok, as a pastor I want to be sure to be teaching the TRUTH of God and not my opinions!
*One of the best ways to become better at turning conversations to spiritual things is to just keep praying and going for it! Let’s ask God to break our hearts for the lost and then be active in sharing our faith in Christ. He’ll do it! I know the more I ask, the more opportunities I have. When I’m not asking, I miss those opportunities. My friends at Dare 2 Share are GREAT and helping us in this area! Check out their free resources here.
*Finally – Whenever the Gospel is preached, some become hostile, some ask more questions and some BELIEVE! Don’t get discouraged if as you share you’re not seeing people believe. Be faithful because God’s Word will not return without eternal impact of some kind. Some day in heaven you’ll get to fully see!!!

1 comment:

  1. I like this way of putting it:
    We are inflexible in our message, but flexible in our methods.

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