Friday 29th January

Psalm 35 vs 28
 
“My tongue will proclaim your righteousness, your praises all day long.”
 
A good tradesman is never short of work because those who benefitted from his skills and are pleased with the quality of his work are his best sales people. You can watch all the TV advertisements you like and read all the blurb in the publicity leaflets but the best way to judge their accuracy and the ability of the tradesman in question is to listen to his customers.
 
Having encouraged others to trust in the Lord in Psalm 34, David again finds himself in a tight spot and again he calls on the Lord for help. We don’t know the outcome but the psalm is filled with confidence that the Lord will answer, and it ends with the promise from David that he will proclaim God’s righteousness. As those who have experienced the love of God and his deliverance in many trials that ought to be our pattern as well. It might be the example of David but it is also the very last thing Jesus commissioned his followers to do, Acts 1:7-8  “He said to them: ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’
 
That commission has not changed our task is, like theirs, to tell others about Jesus to speak about what we have known and experienced and how Jesus has touched and changed our lives. That’s all it means to be witnesses and to be witnesses we don’t need theological training or to have done the latest evangelism course however much that may help, we just need to speak up and nothing is needed more urgently from the church in these days of lockdown when all our external activities and ways of outreach have either been curtailed or ended and nothing beats the personal touch of telling what the Lord has done for us.