By All Means, Tell Somebody, But Wait Before Accepting the Mantel of Leadership.

# 95 Today's Prime Time Devo comes from: 1Ti 3:6 not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. (1 Tim 3:6) I've seen it in my own life and I've seen it in others. A person gets saved or a celebrity or well known sports figure makes a profession to follow Christ and immediately we place a cloak of some sort of spiritual leadership on them. Their zeal for the Lord is mistaken for spiritual wisdom and maturity. They (and we) fall in love with their press clippings if you will, and pretty soon they start to believe that they know everything there is to know about Jesus and the Bible and therefore are qualified as spokepeople for the faith. Be very careful here. To put that mantel on someone before their time is to put them at great risk of that great enemy of faith.....pride. Zeal for the Lord is a good thing! There's an old Don Francisco song that goes, “Got to tell somebody, got to tell somebody, got to tell somebody, what Jesus did for me!” This is a spiritual truth. When one experiences saving grace and forgiveness of sins he or she can't help but tell others the Good News. I think of all the people that Jesus healed and in spite of Him telling them not to tell anyone, many disregarded what He said and spilled the beans to anyone who would listen. Then there's Apollos, converted under the ministry of John the Baptist and so excited about the washing away of his sins, that he brought the message of forgiveness to the Jews, speaking eloquently in their synagogues, but also apparently speaking in error as Acquila and Priscilla needed to take him aside and explain the way of the Lord more accurately. God bless all new converts! God bless that burning desire you have to tell others what Jesus has done for you! Never lose it! Don't allow others to dampen it, but at the same time, pass on any attempts to take positions of leadership in the Body of Christ until you have had adequate opportunity to be schooled in the doctrines of Christ handed down to the Apostles!