WEDNESDAY August 7th
Ephesians 6:19-20
‘. . . and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.’
I have returned to these verses again for as I took the four words yesterday ‘and also for me’, I want us to consider more specifically what it was that Paul wanted the church to prayer for him. It was ‘that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel’.
If you took the four words yesterday ‘and also for me’ I wonder what your request would have been, or mine. There would have been many various applications, but I am sure that everyone of us beside any personal application we may have made would also need to say, ‘and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel’.
Paul wanted to continue to be obedient to the call that the Lord Jesus had given to him, which was to take his name to others, for Paul it was a specific call as we have seen from Acts 9:15-16, but we too have a responsibility to take and to share the gospel with others.
One of the hymns I was brought up with as we would attend the missionary prayer meeting once a month is found in the Redemption Hymnal:
For my sake and the gospel’s go
And tell redemption’s story;
His heralds answer. “Be it so,
And thine, Lord, all the glory!”
They preach his birth, his life, his cross,
The love of his atonement,
For whom they count the world but loss,
His Easter, his enthronement.
I close this devotion with the words of another song,
Tell the whole wide world of Jesus,
Bear the news from shore to shore;
Telling sinners of the Saviour,
Let the light spread more and more.
To which we should be willing to reply;
Yes, we’ll send the joyful message
Over mountain over wave,
Telling everywhere of Jesus,
And his mighty power to save.
‘‘. . . and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel’.