Sitting in our informal communion last night and thinking about all that Christ did for us on the cross. It struck me how sometimes we get the opportunity to speak of our faith but fear gets the better of us and we find an excuse to bottle out of it. But what are we really afraid of? Ultimately if anyone had a right to be fearful it was Jesus in the sacrifice he made in the first place, but he went through with it, so what excuse do we have for not speaking of the good news of Jesus Christ when the opportunity is before us?
Then this morning we were looking together at Luke 10, Jesus sending out the 72. Jesus says to them “I am sending you out like lambs among wolves”. I suppose given that context you can begin to understand where that sense of fear may start to come from. But even though the idea of being a lamb among wolves may seem a bit scary we should perhaps think about Daniel with the lions, or Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they stood for God and as a result faced things much worse than we are ever likely to, and God was with them.
What is our greatest fear in these situations? Is it the fear of human rejection or ridicule? What about the fear of disobedience to God?