Enable your servant

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

ENABLE YOUR SERVANT

Acts 4:23-30

23 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: "'Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 26 The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.' 27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus."

NIV

This was difficult to break up so let’s take the whole of it at once. The basic premise of this prayer is asking God to give them the boldness to keep speaking and teaching about Jesus. They did remind God, although he needs no reminding, about what David had said years ago, about the rulers, elders and teachers of the law raging and plotting against Jesus. They also understood that it was in his plan they do in order that Jesus would go to the cross for the sins of the world. But now they ask God to consider these current threats against them and ask him to enable them to speak his word with great boldness as well as heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of Jesus. What has happened? It does not seem our prayers resemble this kind of prayer at all. Shouldn’t we be praying that God will enable us to speak his word with boldness, and not just in church, but in the streets, among the unbelievers, or we should say the unchurched, to be more politically correct? Shouldn’t we be praying for God to stretch out his hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of Jesus? It would seem a sure thing if there were healings and miraculous signs and wonders, combined with us boldly proclaiming the Word of God, there would be a great number of unchurched people flooding into the doors of the church, or at least a large amount of people would be added to our number daily. But instead we pray for things, or when we meet together we pray for our friends, aunt who has a son whose mother’s father is having some kind of procedure tomorrow. Although God has said that he would provide for our every need and that we should ask him for our daily bread, it would seem this kind of prayer would certainly please him a great deal. It is also true we need to work through prayer on our relationship with him, it would seem he would be very interested in us also praying for the boldness to speak his word and asking him to heal, to perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of Jesus, which of course we would have to voice out loud, to the unchurched who would see and hear at the same time, and maybe even some of the churched might join our number as well. Lord, enable your servant, enable me.