Wait and See
Opening Prayer
While you pray, ask the Lord to help you to hear his voice clearly as you read his Word today.
Read Acts 19:1-22
[1] While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples [2] and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” [3] So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied. [4] Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” [5] On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. [6] When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. [7] There were about twelve men in all. [8] Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. [9] But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. [10] This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord. [11] God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, [12] so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. [13] Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” [14] Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. [15] One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?” [16] Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. [17] When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. [18] Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. [19] A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. [20] In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. [21] After all this had happened, Paul decided to go to Jerusalem, passing through Macedonia and Achaia. “After I have been there,” he said, “I must visit Rome also.” [22] He sent two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he stayed in the province of Asia a little longer. Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
What change did the believers in Ephesus need?My mother had a philosophy of life that used to drive me crazy! “Wait and see,” she’d often advise. Wait and see? No, I wanted to shake things up, take control, be the master of the outcomes, and the sooner the better! Only later did I come to appreciate the wisdom of my mother’s words. We can never tell what good things will result when we tell people about Jesus. It’s certainly not up to us to try to make one or another event happen in a person. All God wants us to do is plant the seed, and he will decide whether or not it grows, and if it grows, what it grows into. Paul said later of his time in Corinth, “I planted the seed; Apollos watered it, but God made it grow” (1 Cor. 3:6). Sometimes, disappointingly, there will be no positive response. As we live out and talk about the Good News, some people may even become hostile. Talk of God can have that effect.
Apply
What do you expect to happen when you talk about the Lord with others? What should you expect to see?
Closing prayer
Ask the Lord for courage and power as you go out into the world as one of his Good News people.
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