Notice how different these three individuals were. Lydia was a respectable businesswoman with religious convictions. She had a home large enough to offer lodging to the four missionaries, and so she must have been fairly well-to-do. The slave girl was a piece of property to be used and discarded by her masters. Rather than seeking after God, she was actively serving Satan. The jailer was a hardened military man. He could take prisoners with their backs bleeding, throw them into the prison, fasten their feet into the stocks (which were not designed for personal comfort!), lock the door, and go get a good night’s rest, except for being awakened by an earthquake.
Also notice how different the circumstances were in which these three people encountered the Lord. God had already worked in Lydia’s heart to make her a seeker after Him and so she was in a prayer meeting. The slave girl was on the streets, with absolutely no knowledge of the one true God. The jailer was saved in connection with doing his job. He was suddenly awakened by this powerful earthquake, and when he saw the prison door opened, he was ready to fall on his sword and die, since he would be tortured and executed if any of the prisoners had escaped. Out of this extreme crisis, he met the Lord.
Isn’t it amazing that God picked these three very different types of people to form the nucleus of the infant church in Philippi? Lydia didn’t start a seeker church for Yuppie business- people. The slave girl didn’t join the hippie church for former street people. And the jailer didn’t join the military chapel. They all had to learn to accept and love each other in the same church in Philippi. This is one of the marks of the gospel - people who would not ordinarily like each other, or even associate with each other, coming together because God’s love has changed them!
God works through His grace to draw very different people from different backgrounds to Himself, and He wants them to learn to love one another as a testimony to the world of His saving grace. And even though these three people were very different, it was the same gospel that saved them all!
Our great God is sovereignly working behind the scenes, even when we are not aware of it, to work all things after the counsel of His will. In other words, nothing happens by chance, even though it may seem to us to be by chance. Certainly the salvation of a soul, whom God has predestined to salvation before the foundation of the world is not left to chance!
Jeff Frazier
Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. - Ephesians 1:4-5
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment