Bold

The people in the bible lived so boldly. I don't want to say bible characters because that seems like their made up and fictional characters. But the people who lived radically enough that they made it into the Bible. I've noticed really no one in there is moderate, and just an average living person. There were lots of average people who stepped out and followed something bold, did something bold, but no one lived average. Either they went big and did good, or they went big and fought against good. No one just got by and made it into the Bible.

So I begin to wonder, would how I live make it into the Bible?

I know it's not something to shoot for, but am I sold out enough and being bold enough that I might be considered even that something God did in my life might teach other's his character and how he works? I would hope so, but I doubt it.

Something that caught my attention today was premeditated murder. It happened a lot in the Bible. Specifically, looking at the New Testament. I was reading in Acts 14 v5 and it read that there was a plot to mistreat and stone Paul and Barnabas. They wanted to kill them! Just because they were talking about Jesus (I just say just because but this man was splitting their culture, their religion, their city, their families, their life in two.) So anyways they found out about it and fled somewhere else... "where they continued to preach the good news." v7 These guys wouldn't shut up! I mean this was pretty much a common weekly thing is getting threatened to be killed. Peter was thrown in jail, not killed... yet. In the same chapter (acts 9) that Paul accepts who Jesus really is and stops killing Christians himself, he turns around and is almost killed twice by two different places. He gets lowered out of a basket from a city wall, then goes down the road a bit and keeps talking about Jesus and almost gets killed there too. I mean shoot the last 8 chapters of Acts are a chase scene with people trying to hunt down and kill Paul, while God keeps Paul's butt clean and keeps taking him to more and more places, and Paul just keeps talking about Jesus with everyone he runs into making more believers and more enemies.

I mean what did you expect? Jesus said, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first." John 15:18. Jesus pretty much is like, Yeah, welcome to the party. It's nothing new, he gave them a heads up in John 16 "All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. (be warned) They will put you out of the synagogue,; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. (Pretty much Paul here to a T.) They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this , so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you." I mean they can't be too surprised. He tells him this at the last supper, right before the plot thats been brewing to kill him gets carried out. Obviously, the events that follow this probably overshadowed and overwhelmed their memories to remember this. But sometimes I forget that this wasn't the only time they tried to kill him.

Earlier in John 5:16 the Jews persecute him for breaking the sabbath and healing on it. Then in verse 18, after he says that God is his father they tried even harder to kill him. In John 7:30 they tried to seize him after he was teaching and explaining he's from God, but they couldn't touch him. Then John 8: 59 They try to stone him when he tells them he's older than Abraham and he's eternal but "Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple ground" Again in John 10: 31 & 39, they tried to stone him and seize him but "he escaped their grasp." So we often get caught in they planned on killing him once and then finally did, but really they tried many times but had to come up with a large scheme to do it. Premeditated definitely. Plus, it also shows that Jesus gave his life for us, that no one took it. I mean two different times they bent down to pick up stones to kill him and when they looked up he was gone. They tried to kill Jesus many times, so it makes since if we should share in his sufferings as to why they would go onto try and kill his disciples later for it.

SIDE NOTE: They also tried to kill Lazarus, which I just think is funny. John 12: 10 "So the chief of priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well." Isn't that kinda self defeating. I mean, yeah, it might work for a bit, but think about it. "Hey, lets kill the guy that Jesus brought back from the dead. That way he's dead...again. But this time he'll be dead dead. We'll show him!" Good call Einstein. He's brought him back to life once, what will stop him from doing it again? Matt Kelly suggested Lazarus trash talking the religious folk. I can see that, "Yeah, Yeah. What you gonna do? Kill me? Pssh. Been there, done that, got a t-shirt... ur. well, grave clothes." But you get the picture of their extreme acts towards anything that would promote Christ.

So back to living boldly. I wonder what our excuse is? What's our reasoning not to? I mean these guys who God changed the world with were sold out. Do we not want to have an impact for Christ? These guys were willing and some did give their lives for it. Shoot, they thought they killed Paul by stoning him and left him there, but he ended up living and the first thing he did was go back into the city that just tried to kill him.

Nobody's every tried to kill me because I talk about Jesus. No body has even ever hit me because of it. No kick and no punch. They may have given me a weird look, or ignored me. They may have refused to invite me to places, or they've said something bad about me. That is what's stopping me. I've never had a loaded gun pointed at me like they did. Yet they still talked more about God than I do. I just wonder what's stopping us. Do we desire to just live in mediocrity? Desire to just fit in with everyone? Is our goal in life to just get by? Or do we want to have an impact? I thank God no one has tried to kill me yet. But I want to be bold like they were bold. Letting nothing stop me from telling the truth. ha. Isn't that what we're taught, always tell the truth. Even in elementary school they were telling us to be missionaries. I want to be bold. I want people to see You in me. I want it to be all about you and never about me. So help me be what it is that brings you glory.