Tuesday, April 1

Courage Needs Prayer – “Don’t Bore Us, and Get to the Chorus”

Tuesday, April 1

Acts 4:29

“And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence…”

During worship, we usually pray the Lord’s Prayer in unison. It does not feel so much epic, as it does comfortable, to me. We gather our faith and voices.  Wonderfully together, we pray to our Heavenly Father the prayer He has taught us.

The reading above appears, from what Luke wrote, to be a spontaneous, unrehearsed, uniform, corporate prayer spoken during worship in response to the apostles’ imprisonment, threat, and release by the Sanhedrin.

There are 8 verses in all; some passages are found in the major prophets, some in the Psalms, some from the Old Testament historical books.   What’s up?

Honestly, I’m not absolutely sure, but it seems to me that God is saying – “This is the message I have been speaking in many and various ways from old… through My faithful saints from all the nations and ages, all singing this same chorus. (Read the prayer chorus in Acts 4:24-30.)  Within this chorus we find a discordant antiphon: Herod, Pilate, Gentiles, and Israelites all opposing the Lord and His Christ, a fulfillment of Psalm 2, quoted in Acts 4:25, 26.

These opposing choruses have been sung since Satan sang his out-of-tune solo, misquoting BADLY the clear lyrics of the Lord. God is saying join the faithful chorus. It is not the most popular, it is chastised and often persecuted, but it is the song God composed from eternity. It’s the song of Love and Truth, proclaimed by angels at Jesus’ birth.

From time to time, the faithful singers are drowned out by the sheer volume of the opposers. But keep singing the song of salvation.

This takes courage. When was the last time you prayed for courage to speak of Christ? I bet not often, maybe never. Pray now. God knows the Church needs courage to share Jesus; do we?

I once heard an old rocker talk about the history of rock music, and he said for much of rock’s history the fans’ mantra was “Don’t bore us, and get to the chorus!” The point was that in music, especially pop music, lazy and immature ears wanted to hear the happy, easy-to-sing-along lyrics in the chorus of a song.  (Think “Sweet Caroline” but try not to think about the Red Sox simultaneously.)

Speaking of Jesus’ love should be easy. It should flow from our hearts.  It does take courage, and it does take some rehearsal.  (We call that worship and meditation.) But after this chorus prayed “grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence…,” it took just 2 verses for their prayer to be answered.  I’m thinking God likes that prayer and chorus! Sing the prayer now.