SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/30/2017
12:24 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Faithfulness in Service
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts
9:13-17a
Message of the
verses: “13 But Ananias answered,
"Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to Your
saints at Jerusalem; 14 and here he has
authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name." 15
But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to
bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; 16 for I
will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake." 17 So Ananias
departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, "Brother
Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming,
has sent me so that you may regain your sight,”
We mentioned that Saul was praying to the Lord, and that
God gave a vision to Ananias to tell him to go and see Saul, and now we want to
talk about the response that Ananias has to this vision. Perhaps we think that if we knew that we were
getting a vision from the Lord that we would jump up and do what He wanted us
to do right away. However that was not
the case with Ananias as kind of like Zechariah, the father of John the
Baptist, Ananias has come concerns about what the Lord wanted him to do. As far as his concerns I understand them for
what Saul was doing to the believers could have meant Ananias would have to die
for his faith. I have thought about a
question that I even asked in our Wednesday evening service, and that is I
wonder how many people were actually praying that God would save Saul of
Tarsus. Ananias was afraid of him with
good reason, but I wonder if he was praying for him. I don’t know the answer to that question, but
I have to say that I find it difficult to pray for people who are persecuting
the church or who dislike Christianity, so I can understand if Ananias was not
praying for Saul of Tarsus. John MacArthur
writes “The request no doubt appeared to him to be suicidal. His life was at stake, and so was the ministry
he had in the church. He was asking if
the Lord really meant to end both.”
We see from verse fifteen that the Lord overruled as God
said, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles
and kings and the sons of Israel.”
MacArthur adds “The call to the ministry is not based on the whims of men
but on the sovereign choice of God.” How
true this statement is. All we have to
do is look at the life of Paul to see that what happened to him in the remaining
portion of his life had all be planned in the sovereign will of God. Ananias understand the call of God as he undoubtedly
saw it in his life. Let us look at
something that Paul wrote in the very first verse of Galatians “Paul, an
apostle (not sent from men
nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who
raised Him from the dead).” We
can see similar writings from Paul in some of his other letters including first
and second Timothy, and also Colossians.
Paul realized that his primarily responsibility was to preach to the
Gentiles he would go to the Jews first before going to the Gentiles. Paul knew where his calling came from and so
he obeyed his calling and God used him and others in that early church to turn
the world upside down for the cause of Christ.
God also told Ananias that Paul would have to suffer much
for the cause of Christ and suffer he did as he gives a list of his sufferings
to the Corinthians in his second letter to them. Paul’s sufferings would not stop until, for
the cause of Christ died in Rome by having his head cut off.
Ananias was strengthened by the words of the Lord and so
he “departed and entered the house” of Judas, “and after laying his hands on
him said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by
which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight.’” “And [Ananias] said, The God of our fathers
has appointed you to know His will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear
an utterance from His mouth. For you
will be a witness for Him to all men of what you have seen and heard (Acts
22:14-15).”
MacArthur concludes “The stories of both Ananias and Saul
illustrate the truth that the transformed life demands service to Christ. As Saul was later to write ‘Let a man regard
us in this manner, as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God’
(1 Cor. 4:1).”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Be ready to do
what the Lord desires me to do, and then do it.
My Steps of Faith for today: Trust that the Lord will continue to give me
the words to say to our new neighbors that the Holy Spirit will use to speak to
their hearts and give them an effectual call for salvation in His time.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Lebanon” (1 Kings 5:6).
Today’s Bible
question: “Identify the first person who
met Jephthah when he came home from battle.”
Sad answer in our next SD:
12/30/2017 1:09 PM
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