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…
- “…we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”
- How did they conclude that?
- 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:
- God where are you calling me to?
- 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.
Wow! This allowed me to confirm that it was wise of me to partner with someone in a ministry and follow them as they help plant a new church so that the ministry can grow. Oddly enough, there's a good chance this church will be relatively close to where I live. God did indeed lead me to a specific person and this is the first time it's happened in my walk with the Lord. I was wondering if this was normal and proper but I suppose it is! Thanks Paul :)
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