👉🏼 (Reading: Acts 2:32-38)
📜 ""Therefore let all Israel be assured of this; God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ""
Acts 2:36 (NIV)
📋 The one goal of preaching is to transform lives. It should only be done under the power of the Holy Spirit. However, preaching the word today is only becoming a show off, and without any lasting result. Reading through Acts 2, we see how the Holy Spirit empowered the Apostle to preach with power.
Peter, who was earlier frightened by a small girl into denying Jesus, now filled with the Holy Spirit, makes one of the most powerful statements as recorded in the focus verse: "So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God had made this Jesus, whom you crucified to be both Lord and Messiah".
This message pierced them", compelling them to ask a question, "What shall we do?" Peter's sermon was so powerful that it yielded immediate results. Our messages are to pierce hearts, compelling people to ask, "What must I do?" We are called to preach nothing but the word of God, to bring people closer to him.
However, today the story is different. What do you preach today? Do you preach sugar-coated words, without God's power, which your hearers want and clap for you? Let us preach the hard and true word as Peter did to bring people out of their sins.
Learn to submit yourself to the Holy Spirit to preach the word with power.
🔑 Key Lesson: We are called to preach the word with power to save souls.
🛐 Meditation and Prayer: Lord, let the Holy Spirit give me power to preach the word without fear.
📚 Further Reading: 1 Corinthians 8:6; Luke 6:3-5.
◼️The Bible in One Year: 1 Chronicles 3-4.