AN OPPORTUNITY TO WITNESS

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Luke 21:13 This will be a time and an opportunity for you to testify [about Me].

When someone lays their hands on you, it means you have fallen under the umbrella of their influence, often in a negative light. To the primitive brain, that is the time to begin to negotiate one’s survival.

Thus, when entrapped by a system, or persons of power and authority, you begin to ponder on a few questions: What is likely to happen? What should I say? What would they want from me? How do I get out of this? What would I have to part with? That is our default survival instincts kicking in. Yet, Jesus throws a spanner into our thinking when He says ‘that will be your opportunity to bear witness’.

Excuse me! When I could be forfeiting my life with any wrong word or a wave of hand by those in power, you tell me it’s an opportunity to witness? Beloved, our perception of the reasons for any encounter determines our posture during those  encounters.

Where persecution is seen as a threat to life, a defensive structure is put up. But where it is seen as an opportunity to showcase God, an abandonment to His will result. Mind you, it is not a walk in the park to stand ready to forfeit your life, whether in a literal or even figurative sense. It will require an enduring conviction in the person for whom you stand as a witness.

#sly