7/13/2025 When I was a younger Christian, having “experiences” from God that were validated by Scripture meant so much to me. I would get a high when I could feel Jesus close to me, or His glory shining on my face. His Word was and is living and active for me, and upon hearing the gospel, it wasn’t hard for me to want to tell others. I’m not sure where I stumbled upon this idea, but it seems to be that in order for someone to be a preacher, teacher, evangelist, or simply to prophesy, an individual would have to be a spiritual master of whatever material they were reading. I picked up on context clues and comments, I think, ideas like “let the preacher do the talking about Jesus – that’s his job”, and other ideas that accompanied the thought that speaking for Jesus was not the individual Christian’s duty. Even so, I propose that the idea of the requirement to have perfected all the Scriptures (already) that you want to talk about is simply not a reasonable idea. I can think of people right now who have not given themselves to sharing the gospel, or even sharing in the gospel, or having fellowship around Jesus, koinonia, because of this false assumption! Too many people are deceived and believe it requires that they be in the “vocation” of preacher, teacher, or minister. “Following Jesus” or “being Christ’s disciple” does not always mandate that a person must have a career position in “the church” to share in the life that is in Christ! Heaven forbid to think that! But I thought that for almost half my life. I was elated to start sharing the good news myself; It was as simple as sharing my testimony of my conversion or sharing what Jesus was teaching me at that given time. When I did do anything within me willed to the commission of God, I could feel Him pouring His Holy Spirit on me.

We all must share the gospel somehow!

Some people are opening their eyes to the realization, even recently, that they can clearly prophesy, preach, and be active in God’s ministry even without being on a payroll for it. And those that are on payroll are held in positions of honor, and should be. It can be dangerous, however, to limit God to only acting strongly on those hired people. “Also, a dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me” (Luke 22:25). What if God chooses to tell someone to do a mini-mission for him, like go to Africa – to an orphanage village to help temporarily, and then come home and do accounting (career) again later? We must have eyes of a spiritual-kingdom sense, and not judge things of authority like the world does. I hold that that individual who fulfills a task of conviction, speaks up for Jesus in public, withstands a public embarrassment for Christ, etc., would have been used mightily of God; God help us to see that Jesus has the right to tell us what to do at any given time, and any day of the week, too! Our response must be “Lord, Yes Sir!”

“Sir, Yes Sir!!”

Imagine if Moses had told himself no to not preach about the writing on the tablet, “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, because in reality he had killed a man before in Egypt. Now, he didn’t ask God to take that off the tablet to tell God’s people of 9 commandments rather than 10, simply because he had messed up before. OUR GOD IS A GOD OF REDEMPTION, and He is always going to be working with us honestly, all the way to heaven. (BTW!) Jesus comes for a glorious and spotless bride, and we can’t pretend to get cleaned up when we get to heaven. If we really want heaven now, we MUST practice heaven now! “(The kingdom of God) nor will people say, ‘Here it is,” or “there it is,” because the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). Think of Peter, who was pitiful in his denying of Jesus, but who later was deemed a major leader in the early church. The writings we do have of Peter, after Jesus’ ascension, are profound and show the redemption of a life’s witness, even after great failure. His testimony of Christ was alive, just as ours should be, of the same Jesus working in us! “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8); recall Peter said “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast” (2 Peter 5:10). This living faith that we can ALL experience is what makes the Bible dangerous to the devil and the kingdom of darkness. God is a living Spirit! Jesus regenerates us; though we were dead, now we are alive! 🙂 We can preach the words of God because of God’s true nature and His faithfulness, and be amazed at the goodness of the Word, often preaching Jesus for us.