“For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:20, NIV)
I’ll admit it if you will. I think about golf a lot. In fact, it would be reasonable to say that I cannot help myself. It’s there in my brain and I don’t think it’s leaving any time soon.
Habits of the mind are like any other habit. They can be trained and retrained. With commitment of time and discipline, our knowledge is strengthened in any field of study. The spiritual habits of meditation and memorization prove that we can learn and secure God’s truths in our minds over and above where our sinful thoughts would wander.
But our minds can also become affixed to some fact or feeling by a powerful learning experience. For instance, a woman can hardly be expected to forget the birth of her children—the experience and its resulting memory are just too great, made so by an overwhelming combination of pain, relief, and celebration. Some too must add to this the grief of losing that child in birth or shortly after, another episode etched in one’s memory.
The disciples of Jesus saw and heard things they would never forget. Their learning experiences included the teachings of this young rabbi. But more than this, their memories were locked onto what they had seen and felt in the final weeks of Jesus’ earthly ministry: the pictures of his broken body and shed blood delivered through their last Passover meal together, the betrayal of their beloved Lord by one they’d called a partner, the beating and crucifixion of this Son of Man, but also his glorious resurrection and his ascension into heaven.
These were not quaint stories or old histories for these men. They had watched all this in person. They were witnesses to wonder.
But they were not witnesses with only their eyes. They were witnesses who also bore testimony with the words of their mouths. They couldn’t help themselves—the Greek suggests they had no option but to speak of what they’d seen.
At what do we stand amazed? Maybe it should be that these men were compelled to proclaim Jesus while we are often so very quiet in our faith. What has Jesus done for us? It’s the testimony we must offer to the world.
—
Jeff Hopper
June 27, 2014
Copyright 2014 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.