Proclaim His Excellencies

This week, my challenge for all of us is to
verbally declare and "proclaim the excellencies" of Jesus.

Proclaim His Excellencies

This week's devotions are written by my son, Bryant Forshee, Junior High Pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church.

- Pastor Danny

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."

(1 Peter 2:9, ESV)

Recently, the faithful few and proud Auburn Tigers fans have been talking nonstop about a big development for Auburn Football: the head coach got fired. With this news, a certain group text message thread between four diehard Auburn Football fans has been going crazy. (These four just happen to be Danny Forshee, Jeffrey Samplaski, Leighton Forshee, and myself.) Despite all the great thoughts and insights in this group chat, surprisingly, Auburn has not called any of us for our input... yet.

Why introduce this week's devos with silly comments about Auburn football? Well, I think we would all agree that we talk about things we are passionate about. We talk about sports, politics, social media, cultural trends, and many other things. We have different avenues to talk about these things: phone calls, text messages, social media, etc. This week, I would like for all of us to go on a journey together in doing what Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:9.

If you have not already, read our passage for today. I want you to look at the underlined portion. This verse was a common verse for me personally, especially my senior year when I was on a homeschool basketball team called the Royals. Even though this verse was common to me, in doing some studying of this verse recently, I came across one commentator who made me think about the underlined portion in a new way. He had this to say:

"The New Testament is consistent in suggesting that these kinds of benefits—extended to us through the mercy of God—are not only to be received with gratitude but are to motivate each believer to testify verbally on behalf of God and Christ."

(David Walls and Max Anders, I & II Peter, I, II & III John, Jude, vol. 11, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), p. 31.)

I love how the commentator put it: "to testify VERBALLY on behalf of God and Christ."

This week, my challenge for all of us is to verbally declare and "proclaim the excellencies" of Jesus. You can do this in many different ways: you can put it in a group chat, you can proclaim His excellencies out loud over yourself looking into a mirror, you can put it on social media. However you choose to do it, I want us all to practice proclaiming God's excellencies.

This word "proclaim" is very interesting! The same author of our quote above goes on to say this:

"Declare means 'to advertise, to proclaim.' A very literal rendering of the verb would be 'to tell out or tell forth.' This suggests we should give a high priority to verbal declarations."