There is a whole lotta inciting going on around the world today. Just watch the news or, better yet, grab your digital surfboard and jump on an internet wave to witness the reality of inciters revving up our CANCEL CULTURE to warp speed.
incite / (inˈsaIt) / to stir up or provoke to action.
Christians are being incited every day like everyone else on the planet. That part is clear. Less clear is why WE aren’t the inciters!
What has happened to the Christian inciters following Jesus’ example of inciting righteousness to provoke peaceful action to his glory?
“Let us consider one another for provoking to love and good works.” Hebrews 10:24
I believe the world’s incessant inciting is a clarion call for Christians of our time to stand up and be BOLD in a way that first startles and then soothes the world.
I am NOT talking about the aggressive boldness that we see the world using to sling slithering slop on their targets.
This is about Christians exerting boldness that has NOTHING to do with our own power or agenda. It is the boldness that emanates from our strength in Jesus and is sustained by the Holy Spirit.
If we’re not disturbed by how little we can do in our own power, we’ll never be desperate enough to ask God for his.
If we take the boldness of Jesus into the world, it must never be delivered through the convenient tactics of being mean and menacing or cynical and crude. And it can never be delivered and/or exerted absent the fruit of God’s Spirit (Galatians 5:22).
It must be offered with humility and a broken heart. Not self-pity or passive meekness.
I ask God to give me the strength to counter the world’s inciting by becoming his ambassador to deliver a new kind of BOLD INCITING for him and his Kingdom.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
When was the last time you were an inciter for Jesus?
“Pray for me that God will give me a message when I am ready to speak, so that I may speak boldly and make known the gospel’s secret…Pray that I may be bold in speaking about the gospel as I should.” Ephesians 6:19–20
