July 16
Bible Reading: Acts 8:4-8
Acts 8:4-5, “Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.”
Have you ever, like Jonah, resisted doing something God has told you to do? In Jonah’s case, God worked despite Jonah’s reluctance to compel Jonah to obey. A similar thing happened when God worked to scatter the church to new regions.
Jesus had commissioned His Apostles to bear witness of Him “to in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The problem was that the Jews in that day despised the Samaritans, so much so that they’d journey around Samaria rather than pass through it (John 4:9). More disturbing even—on one occasion—Jesus’ disciples asked Jesus if He wanted them to “command fire to come down from heaven (on a village of the Samaritans) and consume them” because they refused to receive Jesus (Luke 9:54)!
It took the martyrdom of Stephen and a great persecution to move the people of God to do that which God had purposed to do. They fled the city, but “those who were scattered went about preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). They’d been reluctant to go, but once scattered, they scattered the gospel message and found lots of folks who were eager to hear. Don’t shrug off that person in your life who is difficult-to-get-along with. Maybe God has put you in their life so they might have the opportunity to hear the truth about Jesus. God is good at breaking down boundaries that way (Revelation 5:9).
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”—Galatians 3:28
THERE’S A WIDENESS IN GOD’S MERCY
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea.
There’s a kindness in God’s justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good.
There is mercy with the Savior,
there is healing in his blood.
But we make God’s love too narrow
by false limits of our own,
and we magnify its strictness
with a zeal God will not own.
For the love of God is broader
than the measures of the mind,
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more simple,
we should rest upon God’s word,
and our lives would be illumined
by the presence of our Lord.
LookingtoJesus 