And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. Acts 16:13
People will always tell us about what’s important to them – whether we’re interested or not. We all have friends who do it and we’ve all done it. We’ve droned on about our pets, our kids, our diets, or our gyms, not because others are interested, but because we are. This is that time of year, when those interested in politics feel the need to tell us all about it. It’s not enough to simply tell us though. They want us to come over to their side. This is our nature – to talk about what we’re fanatical about and to want others to be interested as well.
This was the certainly the behavior of Paul and the apostles in today’s passage. In the story, they traveled to Philippi to share the gospel. While there, on the Sabbath, they went out of the city to pray. Instead though, they encountered a group of women, with whom they promptly shared the gospel. It didn’t seem to matter what was going on in the apostle’s lives, they were always ready to talk about their faith. It was important to them. It had transformed them. They were passionate about it and nothing was going to stop them from telling others. This annoyed many. To those who needed it though, the gospel was the blessed news of a new life.
As followers of Christ, we too are also supposed to be passionate enough about what God’s done for us, that we cannot help but tell others. Just like we blather on about our amazing kids or gyms, we should tell others about the most important thing in our lives. The problem of course, is that most of us simply aren’t that passionate about our faith. Sure, we believe, but that’s about it. We’ve not followed God and we’ve not allowed him to transform us. We sure haven’t found any blessed new life that we’re overly excited about.
The lesson isn’t that we should fake it. The lesson is that we must daily invest in our personal relationship with the father so that it becomes something real to us. As we grow in love for him, his Spirit will fill us with new life, naturally pouring out of us, into the lives of those around us. Some will be annoyed, but those who need it, will embrace it, finding the new life themselves.