December 4, 2022

Acts 16: 25 (NIV)

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

Our holy living is not just to please God but to attract others to him.*

I had just moved to a new community and knew no one except my in-laws. On Friday night, I thought it would be "safe" to watch the movie at the drive-in theater from a lawn chair in the back of a pick-up truck. Who was going to see me, right? Monday morning, I show up for my new job and one of the supervisors says, “I saw you at the drive-in the other night.”

The point of that story is: People see us. People watch us. Our circumstances may not be dire like Paul and Silas’s. We may not have a “captive” audience (no pun intended) like they did, but we can influence others for good or bad while oblivious to the fact that we are being observed.

What if you know you are being watched? Paul and Silas had to be aware that there were eyes on them when they cast the fortune-telling spirit out of the slave girl. When they were thrown into prison for throwing the city into an uproar by advocating customs that were unlawful to Romans (verses 20 and 21), they couldn’t have thought that no one noticed. When they began praying and singing hymns from their cell, they knew they had an audience. They took advantage of every opportunity to play to the crowd. It appears that the only impact they had on the townspeople was financial, and there is no indication that the other prisoners’ lives were changed – except that they didn’t escape when they had the chance. But the jailer was so moved by the behavior of these two men of God that he asked them, “What must I do to be saved?” Because Paul and Silas prayed and sang instead of complaining about their circumstances, the jailer and his whole family came to believe in God.

You just never know who is watching. You may never know whose life is going to be changed because you modeled Christ in your daily walk. If actions speak louder than words, make sure yours are shouting Jesus.

Social life furnishes the Christian with his great opportunities.*