Luke 12:11-12 “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.” This episode talks about how we can trust the Holy Spirit to help us talk to others about God. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Do you talk about God to others?
Luke 12:11-12 “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.”
This may seem like a small verse in the grand scheme of things, but this is a very powerful verse. This is a verse we should all remember. This verse is so important because it reminds us the Holy Spirit it with us and they Holy spirit will help us when we don’t know what to say. I think we all use the excuse, we don’t know what to say, a lot when it comes to our task of evangelization. We cower from talking about God to others because we don’t know what to say and we don’t feel comfortable. We don’t talk about God to strangers because we live in a culture where we are afraid to offend someone by talking about God and yet it seems like it is perfectly acceptable to offend people about every other thing on the planet.
We can’t mention God because people might be offended and yet people can use swear words anywhere without worrying about offending someone. It is a little bit crazy what kinds of things people will say these days, and yet we still worry about talking about God because we don’t want to offend someone or we don’t want to push our belief on others. Although everyone else in the world doesn’t seem to have a problem pushing their beliefs on others. If we are in a situation where we want to talk to someone about God but we really don’t know what to say, we can call on the Holy Spirit to help us out. It is as simple as saying, “Come Holy Spirit.”
I never used to talk about my faith. I would talk about God if someone asked, but I didn’t really know a lot about God, so they would be short conversations. I always felt unsure of what to say and I didn’t really know how to answer questions about my faith. I feel people always had questions for me because I am Catholic and so they wanted to know what we believe and why we believe those things. I remember one of the first times meeting my new neighbors when we first got married and moved to Spokane, Washington, they asked what I believed as a Catholic. What were our core beliefs. To be honest, I didn’t know how to answer this question. I was just out of college, I loved my faith, but I wasn’t super strong in it. I was stumped and I didn’t know at the time the Holy Spirit would give me the answers. I did remember at the time that Catholics say a prayer at mass each week that lists our core beliefs. When I am in mass and we get to that prayer, actually to any of the prayers, I have them memorized. We say the same prayers each week, so I know them by heart. However, I realized, If I am not at church and I want to recite them, I can’t always remember them.
This experience with my neighbors, although it felt uncomfortable, was a great thing to have happened. In that moment, when they asked what I believed and I couldn’t spell it out for them, I knew I never wanted to be in that position again. I not only wanted to know what I believe, but I wanted to know why I believe those things. I embarked on my journey to learn about God and my faith, and I haven’t looked back since. Fast forward to 20 years later, August of 2020 I went on a road trip with a friend of mine. We are both Christian and love talking about God. She is not Catholic and so she had a lot of questions about the Catholic faith. I am happy to report that I was able to answer most, if not all of her questions. She said she had never met a Catholic that could answer all her questions or explain what we believe like I did. I say this not to brag about how much I have learned, but to show you that it is possible to learn about why you believe what you believe. And also to demonstrate how I learned to listen to the Holy Spirit. I let Him guide the conversation and I listen for the answers He wants me to give. The Holy Spirit is really smart and always gives me the correct answer.
One of the biggest things I feel has helped me to feel more confident in talking about God has been reading the Bible. I did a read the Bible in 90 days bible study with my friend and her husband when I was in England. It was great because although it was a lot of reading, when we would meet, once a week I believe, there would be a video explaining the parts we read. I loved this. If you have never done a bible study before, I highly recommend it. There are people that study the Bible so much more than I do and they are willing to explain all the little things we might miss when we read it. I truly love learning what is behind the verses, or how the word they originally used in Greek or Hebrew meant something different from that same word in English. I love when they explain the context of what it would have meant to those hearing the words spoken back in the day. Bible Studies make the Bible and the people in it come to life. It is amazing and wonderful.
This verse is talking about when the apostles would get in trouble for talking about Jesus. The verse is saying to go out and proudly proclaim the good news of Jesus. If you happen to be arrested you don’t have to worry about what to say to defend yourself because the Holy Spirit will teach you what to say. I don’t know about you, but I am not sure I would be able to rely on this Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was new to them. He was fresh upon the scene and some of their friends were getting stoned to death for talking about Jesus. I was just writing, I am sure they were scared, but actually I am not sure they were. They Holy Spirit is remarkable and in Acts 4:31 it says, “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” They spoke the word of God boldly. So, maybe they weren’t afraid. Maybe they already knew from past experience that the Holy Spirit would give them the words. I pray for this Holy Boldness. Ever since I was at a retreat and I heard this scripture and I heard the speaker mention Holy Boldness, I knew I wanted it.
I am guessing it was those prayers that lead me to all the Bible studies I have been to, and the home rosary groups, and the Catholic Women’s groups, and my prayer group. The Holy Spirit lead me to all the different ways I could grow in my faith and showed me what it was like to speak up for the faith. The Holy Spirit has put incredible people in my life. I have had so many wonderful examples of what it is like to live my life as an example of my faith. I am grateful for each and ever person I have met along the way who has helped build my faith up to where it is today. Today, I am not afraid to talk about God and I have surrounded myself with friends that love to talk about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit with me. It is so wonderful. If you currently shy away from talking about God, or your faith, can I suggest you pray for holy boldness. Would you like to pray for a holy boldness to speak about God and to speak His word from scriptures? Could you step out in faith knowing the Holy Spirit is there to guide the conversations? Let’s pray for this right now.
Dear heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to the episode right now. Lord, today we are asking you fill us with a holy boldness, like you did for the apostles. Lord, we need the Holy Spirit to show us what to say in this crazy, mixed up world. Christians and our values seemed to be looked down upon more and more these days. We need that holy boldness to stand up for them and to defend you and our values. We love you Lord and we are so very grateful you sent your Advocate to be with us always. Lord, give us the faith to enter into the hard conversations knowing the Holy Spirit will be there to teach us at that time what to say. We are so grateful for all you do for us. Lord, you are the King of Kings and the Lord or Lords. We love you and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Tomorrow’s guest is my friend Mary. I met Mary at one our assignments in the military. Mary is going to bring us a witness about how God saved her life in a miraculous way. You will not want to miss this witness. I look forward to sharing it with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!