Getting Bolder

Key Principle #5: BOLDNESS (part 2)

²⁹Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness
they may speak Your word, ³⁰ by stretching out Your hand to heal,
and that signs and wonders may be done
through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.”

Acts 4:29-30

How To Get Bolder

        Just as it was in the days of Peter, few today can argue with a changed life. If you lack boldness and find it difficult to speak about your faith with others, perhaps at work, with your family, or even to total strangers, imagine how Peter must have felt with such hostility. Yet notice what he says, “we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” One thing that will give you more boldness is to experience Jesus in your own life by following Him.

        But if you truly want boldness in your life, and you pray for such, God will put you in situations where you will absolutely need the infilling of the Holy Spirit to have such power to overcome intimidation. And the church and the Christian who truly seek to be filled with the fullness of the Almighty Holy Spirit will be a magnet which will attract persecution. So how badly do you want boldness?

        If you’ve ever done something heroic and only later realize just how heroic you were or how closely you came to injury or death because of what you did, you’ll probably appreciate the fact that after Peter and John went back to the disciples, they probably only then began to tremble.

        Perhaps their companions wondered aloud if they would have been able to have done what Peter and John did. They were soon to find out. If you do feel intimidated and afraid to seek for bold, you are wise. But don’t avoid it, instead, counter your fear with a prayer like the prayer which the disciples prayed in Acts 4:24-30.

²⁴ So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: “Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them, ²⁵ who by the mouth of Your servant David have said: ‘Why did the nations rage, And the people plot vain things? ²⁶ The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.’ ²⁷For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together ²⁸to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. ²⁹Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, ³⁰ by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.”

        Notice what the disciples did not pray. They did not pray to ask that the threats and intimidation stop. They did not ask for their own protection. They did not say, “God, make the mean people leave us alone!” Instead, they prayed and acknowledge that heaven and earth and the sea and all of the contents of them were made and in control by God. They acknowledged that troublesome times were nothing new or surprising to the people of God, even for David. They confessed that it was God’s hand and purpose for Christ to have been crucified.

        And like God’s servant David, and like God’s Servant Jesus, the disciples squared their jaws, tightened their belts, lowered their chin and figuratively extended their hands out and palms up toward the adversaries in the physical and spiritual realm, and motioned their fingers to come here and bring it on! “Grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your Word.”

        They knew that God often uses our weaknesses and fears in order to show Himself strong and bold through us. After their prayer, the Bible says they were filled with the Spirit (verse 31). As a reminder of what being “filled with the Spirit” means, read Ephesians 5:18, “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit…”

        Being drunk with wine means to be in the state where you are so intoxicated by the alcohol that it is controlling you, making you do things that you’ll later regret. Being “filled” with the Spirit means to be under the influence and so invigorated by God’s Spirit, you’ll do things you will never forget and never regret. Being filled with the Spirit is the opposite of being drunk; the Spirit of God is in control.