Participant or Observer – The Presidential Prayer Team

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. – Acts 16:25

Are you a participant or an observer? Are you familiar with the difference? A “participant” is naturally inclined to engage in emotional ways with others and their immediate environment, while an “observer” responds to the same scenarios by thinking and figuring things out from a distance. Everybody has both parts to their personality, but one is usually predominant to your disposition.

Paul and Silas were on a mission journey in Philippi. Their public testimony for Jesus Christ, and a display of His power through the deliverance of a young girl from demon possession, earned them a beating and landed them in a dungeon, chained. The pair worshiped God in prayer and song as they sat with their guards and other prisoners. Their jailer was paid to watch them and make sure they remained incarcerated, but at the stroke of midnight, a great earthquake shook the prison, broke off their shackles, and swung open the doors. In Roman culture, a jailer who lost his prisoners would lose his life. To his relief, just as he was preparing to fall on his sword, Paul spoke up declaring that everyone was accounted for. The jailer asked how he could know their God and became a participant in God’s great salvation.

You may have no idea who is watching your life of faith. Unlike the jailer, observers may not ask you how to know the Savior, but your testimony influences them all the same. Pray for the United States during these intense days of global unrest to be a nation of worship with prayer on display. Ask that many will come to the knowledge of Christ, finding hope through that testimony.

Today’s Verse: Acts 16:25

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

All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Recommended for further reading: 2 Timothy 1:8-13

⁸Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, ⁹who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, ¹⁰and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, ¹¹for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, ¹²which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. ¹³Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.