My family and I recently took a trip with our friend, Cody. As we were driving down the road, we started talking about how to encourage friends who are struggling with doubts about their faith. After chatting about this for a few minutes, Cody asked me if I had any thoughts about what he could do to help his friend.
While I don’t have an easy answer for everyone who wrestles with doubt, I found myself answering Cody’s question with conviction. What if we lived in a way where we could always share fresh testimonies of the reality of God’s love and power? What if we lived in a way where we were always seeing the gospel work in and around our lives?
We got excited as we talked and prayed about living our lives intentionally and taking risk to see God show up. As we continued our conversation, I became increasingly encouraged to live out of this conviction; we were made to see and experience the gospel working on a regular basis.
This is true for many reasons. First, I need to experience the real, ongoing work of the good news of God’s Kingdom in my own life. While it is true that I only need to be born again once, the gospel is so much more than the message of salvation, it is the foundation of my life. The message of God’s Kingdom was the center of Jesus’ preaching, the focus of the way He taught His disciples to pray, and the thing He said we should seek first.
In Romans 1, Paul says that he is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God for salvation. The word “power” here comes from the greek word dunamis which means “might, power, marvelous works”, it is also where we get the word dynamite from. The good news of Jesus is the kind of power that displaces darkness and ushers us into light! I need ongoing encounters with the power of the gospel in my life as God continues to transform me.
As I learn to be intentional about exposing my life to the good news of God’s Kingdom, it creates a sense of expectation for what God wants to do in the lives of others. I was created to see the gospel work in the lives of people around me. Listen to the words of Jesus from Acts 1.
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
For most of my life, I read that scripture as a command go witness to others. While spreading the gospel is always a great idea, Jesus was not issuing orders here, He was telling His friends what was going to happen.
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes. You will BE witnesses to me.
Once we receive the power of the Holy Spirit, we become (eye)witnesses to what God is doing! When we see with our own eyes what God is doing in the earth, it’s hard to keep silent. It’s been that way for 2000 years. There are several occasions in the gospels where Jesus would perform a miracle and then ask for people to not speak of what had happened. But even when Jesus would ask people to keep quiet, the good news of what He was doing seemed to naturally spill over from the lives of those who had experienced and witness His power at work.
Looking back, I think my misreading of Acts 1:8 was based on the fact that I viewed the gospel in a strictly historical sense. I formed my understanding of what it meant to “be witnesses” around the idea that the gospel was something that happened 2000 years ago. While the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus took place in the past, the power of the finished work of Christ lives on. My mindset needed to shift from thinking that the gospel was something that only worked in the past tense. NO, the gospel of Jesus is a part of the Living Word. It is and always will be alive and full of power.
The truth is that I was created to experience the power of the gospel working in my life and to partner with Holy Spirit to see it work in the lives of others. God’s original design and intention for me was to live life with the ongoing SEEING / WITNESSING of His power working in me and through me. This ongoing beholding of the power of God’s love working in our lives was intended to be the perspective that we live life from.
Regularly seeing the gospel work means that I have ongoing, active encounters with His goodness. It is His goodness that leads me to repentance (changing the way I think) and into the transformation that comes by having my mind renewed.
We were made to see the gospel work. This is not some new teaching. It was the message of Jesus when He stepped into His public ministry. In Mark 1, we find Jesus preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God.
Repent. (Change the way you think) and believe in the good news.
As Cody and I talked it over, we decided to be intentional about looking for places to see the gospel work while we were on our trip. WOW. What we saw over the next few days would fill a book and overwhelm this blog post. We became witnesses to the power of God to heal broken hearts, bring value to the hopeless, and do what seems impossible.
As I watched God work, it changed things in me. It caused me to change the way I think about people and situations. It gave me a clearer perspective on the depths of God’s love for people and it confirmed my conviction: I was made to see the gospel work!
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Brad and his wife, Adriane, have spent over two decades pastoring churches in the United States with a focus on reaching the “un-churched”. In 2011, they moved to Grove City, PA with their daughter Abigail to pioneer Antioch Overflow Experiment (AOX), a community of simple churches with a mission to “disciple, equip, and release sons and daughters of the King to transform every sphere of society for the glory of God.” Follow him on social media @bradmckoy to stay connected to him and his family.
Photo Credit: Mike Weber, IAMMIKEWEBER (banner) Alexander Catedral, Catedralography (bio)