BROADCASTS.com

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you;\xa0and you will be my witnesses\xa0in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,\xa0and to the ends of the earth.\u201d (Acts 1:8)

These were Jesus\u2019 final words to His followers before He was taken up to heaven.\xa0 \u201cYou will be my witnesses\u201d He said to them.\xa0 A witness is someone who has personal knowledge of something or Someone.\xa0 One who gives a testimony, who tells the story of what they have seen, heard or experienced.\xa0 Every follower of Jesus has a story to tell. Every believer has a personal testimony of how through the working of the Holy Spirit they have been set free, forgiven, redeemed, sanctified, accepted, adopted.\xa0 We are a display of Jesus as we go through the motions of our days.

We were not created to be silent, but to share the good news of Jesus with others as we feel the Spirit\u2019s prompting to do so.\xa0 Now for many there is a silence or a backing away that happens at this point.\xa0 \u201cI\u2019m not an evangelist.\xa0 That\u2019s the pastors and elder\u2019s job.\xa0 I don\u2019t know how to share Jesus with someone. It\u2019s not my gift.\u201d\xa0 And on and on we often go.\xa0 In formulating these excuses however, we undermine the role of the Holy Spirit in Christian witness.\xa0 The Holy Spirit works in and through us to spread the good news of Jesus, that salvation is only found through Him.\xa0 If we miss this, we have missed the whole point.

We cannot on our own be a witness of Christ to unbelievers.\xa0 Our words would betray us, our actions profane us or our attitude convict us because we are sinful people who live in a sinful generation.\xa0 But because the Holy Spirit makes His home in us, we can be a witness to what we have experienced in Christ.\xa0 \u201cBut in your hearts revere Christ as Lord.\xa0 Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have\u201d (1 Pet 3:15).

A priority in our lives should always be to set our hearts as the place where Christ is fully honoured as Lord and Saviour, submitting to His rule in our lives.\xa0 The role of the Holy Spirit in this passage cannot be over emphasized.\xa0 God can do His work in and through anyone He chooses. When we are in submission to the Lordship of Christ, He changes us through the working and the power of the Holy Spirit.\xa0 Those who see us will see a difference, a set apartness, a hope.\xa0 That hope is our Christian witness.\xa0 Do we live out of fear and dread, or with the hope and knowledge of who we are in Christ, in whom our hope lies, and our freedom and eternal destiny is secured?

If you knew that a conversation or a series of conversations would be the seed that would in time blossom into a faith in Christ for someone, would you be more inclined to have that conversation, knowing that God was working through you to bring that person to salvation?\xa0 I can personally testify to the power of Christian witness.\xa0 My friends in high school didn\u2019t have all the answers I was looking for in those years, but they also chose not to keep silent about their faith.\xa0 How they lived and what they spoke were in line with one another and with the Word of God.\xa0 The Holy Spirit was already working when I met them, and their witness caused the seed to grow in me.

When we step out in faith and in witness, we may not have all the right words, or know all the answers. \xa0But be sure that the Holy Spirit will put words in your mouth and a prayer on your heart as you do. Perhaps your witness is to the ends of the earth.\xa0 Perhaps your witness is found on your sidewalk at home, in your neighbour\u2019s cubicle at work, or on a friend\u2019s front porch.\xa0 Wherever it is, know that God works in you to will and to act according to His good pleasure.\xa0 He will see to completion all that He has purposed.