14th Oct 2010

Acts 16:6-10 – Paul's Vision of the Man of Macedonia.

• “The Wrong Questions”
• How might your life have been different had you not asked the wrong questions?
• Another thought on vision.
• There is a fascinating yet simple statement that Luke makes in this passage today that could change your understanding of life as you know it.
• Paul and his companions are being guided by the Holy Spirit as to where they should preach the gospel. Who knows how that it happening?
• Then suddenly after a few ‘no’s’ he gets a resounding ‘not there but over here’.
• Luke describes a vision that Paul gets, in which a man of Macedonia is standing and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." These things happen only rarely in comparison the way God often leads us – which follows next;
• Then Luke makes this interesting statement…

1. “…we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”
2. How did they conclude that?
3. They did not get a vision only Paul did!
• As a Christian I thought that getting a vision from God in the form of a place I would be called to or a task I would be show to do.
• As I get older and look back however, I realize as Luke did that most of the time God gives us a vision by showing us who to follow and who's vision to first serve.
• Luke’s leading came by knowing he was called to follow Paul.
• Check it out in the Bible; rarely were people called to a place but much more often to serve a person's vision. After serving someone then God gave them others to serve them in their vision.
• So here is seems are some potentially wrong questions:
1. God where are you calling me to?
2. God what are you calling me to?
• And here is a potentially more successful one:

3.    God who are you calling me to?

• Could it be that for some people they are now in a wilderness experience because they put mistakenly put numbers 1 and 2 before number 3 when in reality number 3 comes first?
• And maybe numbers 1 & 2 happen only when He says so not us.
• Just a thought.
• Praying for people who's vision I can serve so I can know the next steps in my vision.