A Walking Witness

“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth”.  Acts 1:8

Jesus was speaking to His disciples just before He ascended back to His Father in heaven.  He was giving a promise to them that He would send the Holy Spirit to fill them with the strength and power that they would need to carry the gospel to a lost and dying world.  They were to be witnesses for Christ, traveling to places where the Spirit would lead them, teaching the truth of the good news to all that their sins could be forgiven, and they could be reconciled to God.

The disciples did not need to worry about how they were going to be able to carry out their mission.  Jesus indicated to them that all the power they would need would be supplied by the Holy Ghost.  According to S.S. Lovett in his Personal New Testament Commentary on Acts, he wrote that the KJV translators used the word “Ghost” because they saw the Holy Spirit as Christ’s Ghost.  We think of a ghost as the spirit of a person who has passed away.  After Jesus was resurrected and ascended back to His Father in heaven, He left His Spirit or Ghost on earth to continue His work through all those who believe on Him.  Thus, it is by the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ Ghost, that enables all who trust in Christ to obey His commands and to live righteously.  I suppose one could say that believers can be witnesses for Jesus because He is the One who is witnessing about Himself through our words and actions.  Of course, in order to be effective witnesses, we must make ourselves available for His use and purpose.

At my church, we have a “prayer-walking ministry” in which those who make themselves available meet once each week and either go to any one of the neighborhoods located within a mile or two of our church, which I guess one could say that was our Jerusalem, or if walking is too difficult, we have some who stay at the church and pray.  We spend about 30 minutes walking through the neighborhood and take turns praying for the people who live in those homes.  We don’t knock on doors or approach anyone, but if someone is curious about what we are doing, we tell them we are praying for them and their neighbors.  We don’t know any of the people in those neighborhoods, a least I don’t, but you don’t have to know a person or know about what they are going through at the time in order to pray for them.  Some of those homes are filled with folks who have all sorts of troubles, whether they are financial, physical, marital issues, prodigal children, and many other things for which folks need prayer.  Thus, whatever God leads us to pray, we can be sure that someone, somewhere needs that prayer.  We have welcomed folks from two of the homes over which we have prayed into our church fellowship which is an encouragement to those of us who are praying.  God does answer prayer.

Witnessing is not just telling others verbally about the new life that can be found in Christ, it is living one’s life in such a way that people can see there is something unique and invitingly different about one’s manner, attitude, and priorities.  There is an old saying, “You may be the best Christian that someone knows”.  There is another saying, “You just might be the only Jesus that others see”.  And people are watching.  What a tremendous responsibility that a true born-again believer has in representing the King of all kings before a world full of skeptics, unbelievers, cynics, and doubters, but it is a challenge worth pursuing.