To Encourage You

1 Samuel 10:15-16 “And Saul’s uncle said, ‘Please tell me what Samuel said to you.’ And Saul said to his uncle, ‘He told us plainly that the donkeys had been found.’ But about the matter of the kingdom, of which Samuel had spoken, he did not tell him anything.”

As you have opportunity to speak today, what will you speak about?  That’s a pretty strange question, perhaps, for who knows what this day will bring?  Let me put it another way.  If you are a Christian and you’ve been spending time in God’s Word, will you make the most of every opportunity to talk about it?  So much of our communication is about the mundane. We talk about the weather, how our favorite baseball team is making out, or what’s happening with our kids.  Perhaps we talk about politics when the opportunity presents itself, or the latest news.  But how often does our conversation transcend all that?  How often do we speak to others about the greatest story ever told?  Do we talk to others about the kingdom of God? 

Those are some of the thoughts that crossed my mind as I reflected on the passage above about Saul, which records the first opportunity he had to talk about what Samuel had told him regarding God’s selection of him as the first king of Israel.  As Saul parts ways with Samuel, he happens upon his uncle.  His uncle asks him what he’s been up to. Saul tells him he’s been looking for his father’s lost donkeys and that when he couldn’t find them, he had turned to Samuel for advice.  Then when his uncle asks Saul what the man of God had told him, he only tells him a portion of what Samuel had said. He tells him the mundane part – the part about the donkeys.  He fails to tell him, for whatever reason, the incredible message about his selection by God as Israel’s first king, and he tells him nothing about the fulfillment of the supernatural signs that confirmed the truth of Samuel’s words.  Perhaps Saul was overwhelmed by it all. Maybe he liked to keep secrets.  It’s more likely, however, because of some things that happened later, that he just didn’t want anyone else to know. 

As I thought about this, I thought about how the King of kings spoke to others as he walked this earth. As he lived each day and dealt with many of the same mundane things that we do, what did he talk about?  What strikes me is how often He took the opportunity to turn the conversation away from the mundane to the spiritual.  Everywhere he went, he looked for opportunities to talk about the kingdom of God.  As he sat by the well in Samaria and asked a woman for a drink, He turned the conversation from the well water to the water that He could give that could eternally quench her spiritual thirst.  When people asked Him a question about anything, He would turn the answer into a conversation about the eternal things of God.  When people came to Him because they wanted bread, He answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set His seal” (John 6:26-27).  Jesus was always talking about the kingdom because it was the kingdom that was uppermost on His mind.  And He wants us as His disciples to follow His example. 

It is because of the fact that God created everything that “the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:4).”  Furthermore, He is sovereignly guiding all the circumstances in our life, so we can find opportunities everywhere we look to speak of Him if that’s truly the deepest desire of our heart.  We see that desire in the apostle Paul, who was imprisoned more than once for the very reason that he just wouldn’t stop talking about the kingdom of God. And yet as he sat in prison, seemingly shut away from the rest of the world, he writes the following words to those in the church at Ephesus: “Keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak” (Ephesians 6:18-20). So even when imprisoned for speaking about the kingdom of God, he continually desired and prayed for opportunities to keep speaking about it. 

So if you are a Christian, is that your desire? Are you looking to make the most of every opportunity that God gives you to raise your conversation above the mundane to the awesome kingdom of God?  May God give us the boldness to speak often of His kingdom. May He help us to be those who are preaching the gospel to every person God has sovereignly placed in our life, for the opportunities to do so are all around us, if we will simply open our eyes.