16th Sep 26 | 05:09
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a Obedience to the call of God
📖 Acts 08:26-40
02 – 04Feb2024 – *Obedience to the call of God* - _Acts 08:26-40_ – PHILIP MINISTERING TO THE ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH - _Judges 06:11-14_
_Acts 8:26-27a Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, "Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." This is desert. (27a) So he arose and went. …,_
*_This is desert_*
Philip’s ministry in Samaria was growing and there was much to be done. Peter and John had come from Jerusalem to strengthen and build up the ministry. Philip had much follow-up work to do at that time and it was then that the angel of the Lord told him to go to this desert place.
There are times like these when the Lord calls us to serve Him in a particular task. His call comes to us in strange and even disrupting ways. We have begun to plan our work and we are putting things in order and then the Lord seems to disrupt the pattern of the flow of what we are doing. He sends us to do something that is out of the way for us.
Often, we have resisted this move of God in our lives. We prefer to go along with what we have set to do in our minds.
Gideon was not prepared for the ministry that the Lord entrusted him to do. God was wanting to deliver Israel from the Midianites through Gideon and maybe even greater things for him. Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress and the Lord called him.
_Judges 6:11-14 Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son *Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress*, in order to hide it from the Midianites. (12) And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, "The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!" (13) Gideon said to Him, "O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites." (14) Then the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?"_
We see that Gideon was so disturbed over his people and nation that they were not experiencing the blessing of the Lord. This is a quality that each of us must have. We must have a deep burden for our people and nation.
We must be part of the crisis that we are in and pray with the burden that we are in a state of disarray. Many of us find this perspective and response to our circumstances of life of no real value and so we seek our wellbeing in life. This is what we implicitly and explicitly communicate to our children. We say, “There is no future here…seek better places to live and build your lives”.
God is looking for those who are deeply burdened by their situation and He calls them to accomplish a specific task. God calls those who are working hard at their place of work.
Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress. Wheat is threshed in the open fields where there is a strong breeze to blow away the chaff. The winepress is a place where there is no dust and so a closed place. Threshing wheat in a winepress is an extremely difficult task to do as it would require a blower to blow away the chaff. Gideon did this because he was saving his wheat from the Midianites. This was when the Lord called him to lead Israel.
Gideon took time to obey God’s call but he did. We must obey God when He calls us though it may be a very inconvenient time in our lives as it was with Philip. Yet he obeyed by faith, immediately.
The angel of the Lord appeared to Zachariah and gave him God’s message. Zachariah was doing the duty of priesthood before the Lord and his duty was to burn incense. _Luke 1:8-10 So it was, that while he was *serving as priest before God* in the order of his division, (9) according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. (10) And *the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense*._
The hour of incense was the time of prayer of the people and Zachariah was doing his priesthood before God. He was therefore lifting the prayers of the people to God at the hour of incense. The angel appeared to him and said that his prayer was heard and he would have a son.
Here again, was a man who was busy at his work before the Lord and he was also deeply concerned about the state of the people before God. The task of John the Baptist was to bring people back to God, which was the heart cry of Zachariah.
Growth of the kingdom of God in our places, amongst our people and nation ought to be our heart cry. Secondly, we must be fully engaged in doing the work that is in our hands to do, before the Lord. These are the ones the Lord will call for His assignment.
```Are we ready like Philip for God’s call on our lives?```
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