Acts 4:29–32. “And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Thy bondservants may speak Thy word with all confidence, while Thou dost extend Thy hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Thy holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak the word of God with boldness. And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own; but all things were common property to them.
We would not have this picture in the New Testament of the early Church moving so effectively if a certain process had not taken place: The disciples saw themselves as they really were; they had been stripped of all illusions. This event recorded in Acts 4 occurred soon after the greatest time of denial the Church has ever known. At the hour of Jesus’ crucifixion, the disciples all forsook Him and fled. They denied Him and they doubted. They were unworthy, and they knew it. In full obedience they waited until they had been filled with the Holy Spirit before they began to speak the Word. They prayed for boldness to speak the Word.
Like the disciples, we must accept ourselves, with all of our needs and problems, as a bond servant of Jesus Christ, and we must accept Him as the absolute Lord over our life. That acceptance is basic. Then we must accept what He says about us. We cannot honor Him as Lord and still refuse the prophecies over us. We cannot not draw back from the revelations God has given concerning us, just because we feel we are not worthy, and we are not effective. He is Lord and we are His servants. We must Honor the Word He says about us.
Paul was called to be an Apostle, and he knew it. He knew first of all he was a bond servant of Jesus Christ. He knew who the Lord was, and he knew who he was in relationship with the Lord, and he did not draw back from that. His basic acceptance of the Lord and of himself enabled him to accept the rest of the Body. It enabled him to accept his ministry to them and their ministry to him.
If he had not believed what God had said over him, how could he have given the people a word and expected them to believe it? How could he have believed for others if he did not believe that he was a channel of blessing to them? If he could not accept himself as a servant of God, then he could not accept the ministry God had given him to give to others.
Those who know that they have been called of God and belong to Him respond with confidence.
When we accept Jesus as Lord and ourselves as His bond servant, when we believe that these are the days of the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy, that the sons and the daughters have come forth to prophesy the Word of the Lord, then inevitably we will break through to experiences with the Lord, into prophesying and the moving of the Spirit.
Paul illustrated, better than anyone else in the New Testament, what it really means to accept oneself as God’s servant. He could not accept himself on any other basis. Before he became a believer, his whole life was based upon his confidence in himself after the flesh. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He said that if anyone had reason to boast, he had more. He had been circumcised on the eighth day of the tribe of Benjamin. He excelled his brethren in zeal in persecuting the house of God (Philippians 3:4–6).
But when the Lord appeared to him and asked, “Why are you persecuting Me?” Paul saw that everything he had accepted was wrong. He knew that he could not establish his righteousness through the Law; instead, he considered himself to be the chiefest of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).
What happens to a person when they are shattered like this? Paul followed a course by which he became one of the boldest and most efficient apostles of the New Testament. He said, concerning those with whom he had been compared, I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. 1 Corinthians 15:10.
Paul was so shattered that he no longer had any basis for self-confidence. He said, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think that anything is of ourselves” (2 Corinthians 3:5).
In Philippians 3:3 he wrote, “We are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh.”
This man, who once had a reason to boast, had come to the place where he could hardly accept himself as a human being, as worthy of life. Yet he said, “I obtained mercy because I persecuted the church of God ignorantly” (1 Timothy 1:13). He was so completely broken that he had to have a basis for living; he had to find out who he was.
After spending three years in the desert finding out who the Lord Jesus really was—the one whom he had persecuted—and finding out who he himself was, and the fact that God had committed to him a glorious gospel to be preached, Paul came back.
Only one thing could change a man so completely that in his ministry he became the most effective of all the apostles, even though he had been the most ardent persecutor of Christianity that Judaism had ever produced. During those three years, he was not conferring with flesh and blood, but he was seeking the Lord, and the calling of God upon his life.
It pleased God to reveal His Son in Paul, that he might preach Him among the nations; and to do that, Paul had to accept himself as an object of the grace of God. He worked out his salvation, so that Jesus was formed in him. Then he could preach Christ crucified.
He had to accept the boldness which would come by the Holy Spirit and the commission that the Lord had given him. He had to accept the brethren, and the fact that some of them were afraid and would have nothing to do with him because he had been a persecutor.
Because he accepted these things, he could walk through the entire known world of that time and preach the Word of God. He had no point to prove, because he had accepted himself as a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ as absolute Lord over his life.
When people are confused about who they are or what the Lord Jesus Christ is to be to them, there are problems in their lives.
As soon as there is complete acceptance, not only of the Lord but of ourselves in relationship with Him, then we can begin to minister to one another much more effectively.
Sometimes the prayers of intercessors are not effective because there is a question deep in their minds as to who they are in God’s sight. It may be an unconscious thing that they are not aware of, but they do not accept what God has done for them and what He has made them.
This does not mean that anyone should glory in the flesh or have self-confidence in what they are as an individual. But we should have confidence in our relationship with Him, and an acceptance of that relationship and of His provision for us. We must accept the Lord’s work of grace in our heart; and when we do, then we can begin to minister the Word of God.