The Gentile Pentecost (Acts 8-15)Sample

Taking the first step

‘The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus’ (Acts 13:4).

In all the thrilling excitement of participating in God’s great work of taking the Gospel to the nations, Barnabas and Saul had to take their own very first steps.

The glorious excitement of the Spirit-led prayer meeting is immediately followed by the very mundane business of preparing for a long, dusty and exhausting journey.

All Spirit led ministry is like this – the divine and the human all jumbled up together.

After God has spoken, you and I have to take the first step. And as we obediently take our first step we begin to learn how to do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way.

All God said was ‘Separate for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them’. Barnabas and Saul weren’t even told where to go! Acts 4:36 states that Barnabas was a Levite from Cyprus so they made a sensible decision to go to Barnabas’ home country. They went to the synagogues in Cyprus, (where Barnabas no doubt had friends and relatives), and ‘proclaimed the word of the Lord’.

I don’t want to be disrespectful, but they did take the easiest and safest option. But as they did this, they began to be used by the Lord. Nothing much happened at first, but as they grew in confidence two things did happen. First, they came across a sorcerer, (a witch, like the story of Simon the Sorcerer in Acts 8), who publicly rejected the Gospel, but was severely disciplined by the Lord, and the Roman Proconsul, who became a believer.

Do you see what God was doing? As Barnabas and Saul stepped out and cautiously tried to find out how to do what God wanted, God used their fumbling steps and began to vindicate their preaching through the ‘signs following’.

And the most important man on the island is converted; the Roman Proconsul! That is in itself a prophetic intervention of God showing that the Gospel will be preached to the emperor, that the Roman empire will become Christian, that all humanity will follow Christ!

As you and I seek the Lord and overtime discern how He has spiritually gifted us, and as we take obedient steps forward, however weak and feeble those steps may be, we shall begin to grow up into an ever-greater level and ministry in the Kingdom.

Like the lepers Jesus healed in Luke 17:14, ‘as we go we are healed’.

As we go we learn to discern God’s will and how to do God’s will.

As we take courage and step out so the Spirit teaches us the ways of the Kingdom.

You can’t take your second step before you’ve taken your first step – so take your first step, and as you do you’ll soon find you are walking.

It’s a simple principle, but a key one! All growth in the Kingdom begins when you and I take one step forward.

Pray 1 Corinthians 14:1 and take one step forward in prophecy.

Pray Romans 12:8 and take one step forward in serving those in need.

Pray 1 Corinthians 13:4 and do one act of kindness today.

Don’t allow yourself to get all depressed that you’re making such little progress: Thank God and celebrate that you’ve taken one step forward!