Read Acts 7.
Meditate on the passage answering the following questions:
1. What does this tell me about God and the Lord Jesus Christ?
2. What lesson can I learn from this passage?
3. What particular sin does it warn me against?
4. What verse, phrase or single word can I take with me for the day?
Pray
As I read today's passage I was overwhelmed with the sense of God's care and intervention in the lives of His people. Stephen shares, with men who know the Bible, the stories of the nation of Israel. How God guided them, protected them, stopped them, allowed them, and overall was in complete control. I think Stephen, full of the Spirit, got it. He wasn't worried about what to say, or how others might perceive what he said, or even whether he hurt people's "feelings". He truly believed God to be in control, and that whatever happened was part of God's plan.
This is not a free license for Christians to say whatever they want. Remember, Stephen was a man full of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we sin with our words because they are spoken in the flesh and not from the Spirit. I think the best question we can ask is if I say this will I find Christ standing? Or, will He be turning in shame?
Obviously, Stephen spoke nothing that opposed Scripture. He did not beat them, but simply reminded them what they already knew God's word to be saying. I believe they were cut to the quick for the same reason people in sin are cut to the quick when the pastor talks about their particular sin. There are typically two reactions to someone confronting sin. They either turn and repent, or they turn and destroy.
It is my prayer today that God will give me boldness to say the truth. And I pray that God will grant me the strength to stand firm in His word. I need to learn to follow Him and not man. Will you stand for Jesus? He stands for you before the throne of God.
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