Haggai 1:13
By Rev. Don Watkins
According to the authors of Way of the Master evangelism training program, the greatest obstacle to believers sharing their faith is fear. Fear of people and how they will react to the message and more significantly, react to them.
We can learn from an Old Testament prophet, Haggai, how to motivate ourselves and others to share the gospel. The key factor is not letting our fears control us-- fear of rejection, fear of embarrassing ourselves, fear of not knowing what to say. In Haggai 1:13 we read, “Then Haggai, the LORD’S messenger, spoke the LORD”S message to the people, saying ‘I am with you, says the LORD.’” Isn’t that what we are, messengers of the Lord? The Great Commission in Matthew 28 confers messenger status on all of us: “Go therefore…” And the message is the message of the gospel, the life, death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The good news that God has come to save sinners who will place their trust in him and what he has done on their behalf.
We read in Haggai 1:12 that “the people obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him, and the people feared the presence of the LORD.” The returned exiles had plenty to be afraid of. They had returned 20 years earlier and started rebuilding the temple, but the project had been stalled for at least 16 years due to various parties who opposed them. The key to the returnees facing down their fears was to have a greater fear of God. And the key to overcoming our fears of people and how they might react when we tell them about Jesus is to have a greater fear of God.
John Donne, seventeenth century pastor of St. Paul’s in London, found himself apparently afflicted by the same deadly plague that was afflicting many in London. He wrote that he was afraid of everything during that time. He prayed that God would give him a “fear of which he was not afraid.” That is the fear of God. He found that when he was not fearing God he feared everything, and when he feared God he feared nothing. May the Lord give us a greater fear of Him than the fear we have of sharing the gospel message he has given us, his messengers, to share.
By Rev. Don Watkins
According to the authors of Way of the Master evangelism training program, the greatest obstacle to believers sharing their faith is fear. Fear of people and how they will react to the message and more significantly, react to them.
We can learn from an Old Testament prophet, Haggai, how to motivate ourselves and others to share the gospel. The key factor is not letting our fears control us-- fear of rejection, fear of embarrassing ourselves, fear of not knowing what to say. In Haggai 1:13 we read, “Then Haggai, the LORD’S messenger, spoke the LORD”S message to the people, saying ‘I am with you, says the LORD.’” Isn’t that what we are, messengers of the Lord? The Great Commission in Matthew 28 confers messenger status on all of us: “Go therefore…” And the message is the message of the gospel, the life, death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The good news that God has come to save sinners who will place their trust in him and what he has done on their behalf.
We read in Haggai 1:12 that “the people obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him, and the people feared the presence of the LORD.” The returned exiles had plenty to be afraid of. They had returned 20 years earlier and started rebuilding the temple, but the project had been stalled for at least 16 years due to various parties who opposed them. The key to the returnees facing down their fears was to have a greater fear of God. And the key to overcoming our fears of people and how they might react when we tell them about Jesus is to have a greater fear of God.
John Donne, seventeenth century pastor of St. Paul’s in London, found himself apparently afflicted by the same deadly plague that was afflicting many in London. He wrote that he was afraid of everything during that time. He prayed that God would give him a “fear of which he was not afraid.” That is the fear of God. He found that when he was not fearing God he feared everything, and when he feared God he feared nothing. May the Lord give us a greater fear of Him than the fear we have of sharing the gospel message he has given us, his messengers, to share.
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