Sometimes we are afraid to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others. We don’t want to be judged by others, we don’t want to be told “no”, we are afraid it won’t have any positive impact. But we learn in the Bible that sharing the gospel message is indeed what we are called to do, even if there will be circumstances that come with it.

In Acts chapter 7, a man named Stephen gave a speech to religious leaders of his time that ended up causing him to be stoned to death. But he did this because he knew his calling as a believer in Christ INCLUDED sharing the message of who God is, and that Jesus Christ is the Righteous One as prophesied in the past.

Keys to Stephen’s approach:

• He knew the Bible. He was able to recite stories from the Old Testament that were proving a point of his message.
• He knew Jesus was the Righteous One. His final comments included how they killed Jesus, and that was a horrible thing.
• He had God on his side in advance. In chapter 6, it says that right before he spoke his face looked like that of an angel.
• He was not afraid. Stephen knew how riled up these people would get when it was clearly stated to them how wrong they were. Yet he boldly claimed the truth.

Devotional by Jason Lechner