To Encourage You

1 Thessalonians 1:5 “Our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.” 

The gospel message is like no other in many ways.  For one, it is a message of salvation to the lost. It is hope to the hopeless, and peace to those who have lived their lives in enmity with God.  It’s the best news that anyone can ever hear, for no other message compares to this. However, another wonderful aspect of the gospel that is revealed in the verse above is that it is a message that God empowers by the Holy Spirit. It is a message that can bring faith to life in a person who is spiritually dead, for “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).  That’s why the apostle Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). 

In some wonderful and mysterious way, God takes the words of the gospel when we share them with another person, no matter how weak and wavering we are when we share it, and empowers those words in such a way that they can be the source of eternal life to those that believe.  Again, Paul tells us this with these wonderful words: “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimonyof God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).  What an awesome thing this is, that when we, in our faltering and imperfect efforts, share the truth of the gospel, God can step in and empowers those words to bring the miracle of eternal life to a person that is spiritually dead. 

Today in the church there are many people that seem to be enthralled with the concept of “signs and wonders.” They think that if God would just do miraculous healings or other wonderful and powerful things in our midst that people would believe.  Unfortunately, I believe that this is an unwise tangent on what God truly wants to do in this world and how He has chosen to do it.  For example, in the account of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man, languishing in torment in hell, said if someone would just rise from the dead and tell his unbelieving brothers about Jesus then they would believe. However, the response to that question was this: “‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets (i.e., the words of Scripture), neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead” (Luke 16:31).  The message then seems to be that If we truly want to see wondrous things today, the way to those wonders is to simply and sincerely share the truth of the gospel, prayerfully, in the best way we know how. And the greatest miracle, the thing that can cause even the angels in heaven to rejoice, is when an unbeliever becomes a believer, and by that belief is given eternal life.  We don’t have to be a Billy Graham to do this. We just have to be ourselves, telling others the message of the cross and whatGod has done in our lives because of it.  It is in this sharing that we give our great God the opportunity to show Himself strong on our behalf by blessing that message with the life-giving power that only He can bring to that message.

So, are you telling others in your life the truth of the gospel? Are you sharing the truth that has given you life because Jesus has told us to “preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15)? Do you want to see or at least be a part of the most glorious miracle that came happen in anyone’s life?  Then tell the good news of Jesus to everyone you meet, for it is that gospel that is the very “power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).