I am a special messenger from Christ Jesus to you Gentiles. I bring you the Good News so that I might present you as an acceptable offering to God, made holy by the Holy Spirit. So I have reason to be enthusiastic about all Christ Jesus has done through me in my service to God. Yet I dare not boast about anything except what Christ has done through me, bringing the Gentiles to God by my message and by the way I worked among them. They were convinced by the power of miraculous signs and wonders and by the power of God’s Spirit. In this way, I have fully presented the Good News of Christ from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum.
Romans 15:16-19
Are you enthusiastic and boasting about what God has done? I hope so. At times when we look back over past experiences in God it makes us so grateful over what God has done in our lives. It spurs us on to know that we can trust Him fully for the next stretch ahead. So many times in telling our testimony of what God has done it encourages us to remember what we have been through. Oh yes other people are encouraged but so too are we. Tell your testimony often. You overcome by the word of your testimony. Tell it even some times to encourage yourself. I am convinced that is why the Jews were encouraged to set up monument stones at the places where God did something for them. So that when the children and the followers saw and asked why are those stones there? – the ones with the testimony could say “Well let me tell you what happened.” When we do that it enthuses us.
Are you aware the word enthuse and enthusiastic come from the root Greek words en theo? [in God; to be infused with God]. When we have a testimony which is God centred and built on what God did at a particular point in time, retelling it enthuses us. It helps that portion of God inside of us to be rekindled. That is why it is important to keep telling your testimony. I love to tell our testimony because when I do I remember again those things that God did for me and in me. It is life giving again and restores vision once more. No wonder they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.
Paul has reason to be enthused. A Hebrew of the Hebrews, in matters of training as a Pharisee he was unsurpassed. But those experiences become like dung in the light of what God has done. He saw it in Stephen when he witnessed Stephen’s death. Then he came to know it himself. His Damascus road experience renewed his vision with each telling. Maybe that is why he tells it so many times in the book of Acts. All of his experiences become fuel for his passion – the good and the bad. The beatings, the shipwreck, the snake bite etc. When he looks back on it all he sees the hand of God and His protection. Oh yes he recalls to being caught up to the third heaven. Yes he remembers the voice calling to him on the road to Damascus and the bright light all around. He remembers the time in the prison cell in Philippi, walking out of the prison after the angel had brought them through locked doors. All of those incidents and more inspired him to keep on keeping on.
Stop and think about what you can boast about in God. What has God done for you? What have you experienced that could only be explained by God’s intervention or God’s blessing. Take time to list them. Find someone to tell about one of your experiences – NOW. It will do wonders for your faith.
When I sit and consider what Christ has done for me there are many things that come to mind. Some things I have told you about already in Bible Gems but there are many more that I haven’t.
- Hearing God’s ”audible” voice on two occasions.
- A delayed healing in a painful swollen right knee three days after He told me he would heal me on the third day.
- Many provisions of finances or food or other items after going down to the wire on the need.
- God turning the lights on to just to our house in the midst of a power blackout when we NEEDED it.
- God encouraging me to speak to a particular person about something He told me which proved to be totally accurate.
- God providing a manager to look after our house without me saying a word after He had told me not to tell anyone of the need.
- God made our petrol last three or four times the normal distance so He could show me something about the walk of faith
- God’s rebuke to my heart by speaking to my heart in the night when I was getting proud about something.
- God leading me miraculously at a time when I didn’t expect it even though He had told me He would and I had laughed the doubting laugh of Abraham.
- For all the treasures of His Word that God has revealed to me to the point I am astounded by its depth.
The above are 10 out of hundreds of God stories from my experience. Is it any wonder I am enthusiastic about God? It is easy to be enthusiastic about God when He keeps showing His hand. Times too many to count when God’s miraculous intervention spared us from harm – His presence in the midst of coincidence (?). There have been many times when I have put “out fleeces” asking for His confirmation about something and He has responded to bolster my weak faith. Of course there have been the ways that He has led that have astounded us. Two of which I have already shared with you. When you serve a God so great, so strong and so mighty, so awesome in all His ways it is easy to be excited and enthusiastic.
Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous.
Ian Vail
The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.
Ian Vail