“Well now that’s a fine how do you do. You do something nice for someone and it comes back and slaps you in the face.” They had helped a man who was sitting beside the road, and now they were in court after a night in jail. “Why did you do it?” the judge asks for the third time. “We told you that it wasn’t us, no not at all; it was Jesus.” “Fools, He is dead; stop with that name or things will only get worse for you.”

Peter and John had been arrested by the Sadducees because they had worked a miracle in the name of the risen Savior. Their lives were threatened, and they were released with orders: “Never again speak that name!”

I am amazed at the boldness of the prayers in the book of Acts. It would have been a temptation to have cried the blues to God, or to pray for escape from our situation? How many would just turn and walk with Jesus no more? Would we, could we, pray like they did?

Jesus taught us that we are to live in Him, and He in us. That requires boldness. We can’t always escape our troubles and trials, but we can give a reason for the hope and courage that we have as we face both life and death: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God…”

“…and they spoke the word of God with boldness.” Whatever we are going through, we can say the Name, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus”

“Did we in our own strength confide,
our striving would be losing,
were not the Right Man on our side,
the Man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who That may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His name,
from age to age the same,
and He must win the battle.”