Condemning Silence

Listen to: That You May Fully Share Our Joy

1 We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. 2 This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy. 5 This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.1 John 1:1-5 NLT

I love how John starts out, you can almost feel the excitement in his words when he talks about the time he spent with Jesus.

He makes sure you understand that he’s not telling you about a great person he’s heard about, but someone he’s personally experienced. Rather than simply imparting knowledge, he’s pouring his heart out about his greatest love.

Then he goes on to say that he so desparately wants the reader to experience Jesus as well.
He’s not telling us about a great new self-help plan. He’s not telling us about the best lifestyle, or how to become successful, or find the perfect mate. No, he’s telling us about the one person who completely turned his life upside down. He’s not reminiscing about the time Jesus turned his life around, but about how Jesus is continually changing his life for the better. When we move from knowing about Jesus to experiencing Him, then our joy can be complete. Our fellowship(our having the most important thing in our life in common with each other) becomes the unbreakable, unexplainable bond, that binds us together.

I think this passage provides such a great example of how we are to tell others about Christ. We’re not giving them a formula, or imparting important information with them. We’re simply telling them how God has, and is, changing our lives. It’s not something we do, or get training for. “Witnessing” becomes a natural extension of who we are. When you’re excited about what God is doing in your life, you’re gonna talk about it. Nothing is going to stop you.

We see countless other examples of this throughout Scripture. When the prophet Jeremiah was going through his darkest hour, he toyed with idea of giving up, and remaining silent. But when it came down to it, here’s what he had to say:

“But if I say I’ll never mention the Lord or speak in his name, his word burns in my heart like a fire. It’s like a fire in my bones! I am worn out trying to hold it in! I can’t do it!” Jeremiah 20:9 NLT

When Peter and John were jailed by their religious leaders, and upon their release warned not to teach in the name of Jesus, here’s what they had to say:

But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. 20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. Acts 4:18-20 NKJV

John further emphasizes throughout the rest of the chapter, that God is perfect, that we should recognize that we are not, but that it shouldn’t hold us back from serving God with everything that we have. John levels the playing field for everyone of us, regardless of our state in life, our position, etc. We all sin, and we’re all capable of being forgiven. If John can put himself on the same “level” with his readers, then can we really use our position, education, or anything else to make an excuse not to serve Him with our entire life?

We can find so many excuses not to spend time in the presence of God, when it seems like we have our whole life ahead of us, with plenty of time to get our act together, then serve the Lord. In reality, there is no better time, no greater time in our life, in which we can give our lives, our time, and our passion to God.

Andrew Trivette Random Ideas Bible study, podcast

Listen to: Not Good Enough

How many times do we go through life settling for second best? There’s so much more to our life, our relationships, our jobs, our health, and our love for the Lord, than when we just go through the motions. We were created for so much more!

We can choose to go through our jobs, and exist, or we can give it our very best, and become the best in our fields.

We can choose to focus on ourselves, or live to pour our love, our time, and our support into others, and as a result reap rich, meaningful relationships with our families and colleagues.

We can choose to show up to a church service, or we can daily seek and rely on the Lord for our hope, and our joy.

I choose my life’s path, my happiness, and my legacy. I do a disservice to those around me, if I tear down instead of build up. I do myself a disservice if I work half-heartedly at the “less important” things that I’ve committed to. We weren’t created to be second rate. Scripture tells us time and again that we were created to be successful, in everything. God didn’t create failures.

Where does our power to choose come from? When I look at my life, I realize that I don’t have the power to choose the best way, and stick to it. I’m fickle, weak, and just ignorant enough to keep trying to do it on my own anyway. I’ve never had any success in life that didn’t come after I turned that matter over to the Lord, and relied on His help. My job, my sanity, my health, my mental capacity, my relationships, all rise and fall based on how much I rely on the Lord. When I don’t, simply put, it sucks to be me! But when I put the Lord first, the whole world looks like a list of opportunites, just waiting to be explored.

So what’s stopping you from taking your life to the next level?

Andrew Trivette Random Ideas challenge, podcast