Your enemies seek to silence you. When you are silenced, you are rendered ineffective and they win.
What you say matters.
How you say it matters.
THAT you say it, matters the most.
I learned a hard truth a long time ago.
A man without a critic is a man without a voice. A man without a voice, is a man without influence. If you want to be a man of influence, you have to be a man with a voice. If you have a voice, you will have critics.
Stephen, in the Book of Acts in the Bible is a man who had a powerful voice.
“But some men … rose up and argued with Stephen. But they were unable to cope with the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking.”
Acts 6:9-10 NASB (I shortened the verse for clarity).
It says that his opponents were unable to cope with the wisdom and the Spirit (the Holy Spirit) with which he was speaking. They couldn’t take it!
As we read on in the passage, we learn the crowd and leaders then created false accusations against him. He continued to proclaim the history of Israel and God’s in spite of their opposition. The crowd eventually drug him outside and stoned him to death.
They could not silence him, so the killed him.
Your voice matters.
What matters most about your voice, is the words that are being spoken. Are they filled with truth, molded and shaped by God’s word? Or, are they crafted and adopted from the culture and what is popular? Are they filled with God’s power? Or, are they fueled by the power of popularity?
Stephan’s words were powerful because they were truth, filled with God’s Spirit. In the end, he died, but the words live on.
Prayer
Lord, may our words be crafted by the Word of God and spoken in the power of the Spirit. And may we have the strength to endure the opposition, criticism, and anger the world throws at us. Amen.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash