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September 7, 2009
Scripture verse of the day
acts 9:18
instantly it was as though scales fell from his eyes Paul could see, and was immediately baptized.
Scripture reading of the day From the Living Bible
acts 8:14 — 40
when the apostles back in Jerusalem heard that the people of Samaria had accepted God’s message, they send down Peter and John.
As soon as they arrived, they began praying for these new Christians to receive the Holy Spirit, for as yet he had not come upon any of them. For they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John laid their hands upon these believers, and they received the Holy Spirit.
When Simon saw this — that the Holy Spirit was given when the apostles placed their hands upon people’s heads — he offered money to buy this power.
“Let me have this power to,” he exclaimed, “so that when I lay my hands on people, they will receive the Holy Spirit.”
But Peter replied, “your money perish with you for thinking God’s gift can be bought! You can have no part in this, for your heart is not right before God. Turn from this great wickedness and pray. Perhaps God will yet forgive your evil thoughts — for I can see that there is jealousy and sin in your heart.”
“Pray for me,” Simon exclaimed, “that these terrible things won’t happen to me.”
After testifying in preaching and Samaria, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, stopping at several Samaritan villages along the way to preach the good news to them to.
But as for fill up, an angel of the Lord said to him, “go over to the road that runs from Jerusalem through the Gaza desert, arriving around noon.” So he did, and who should be coming down the road but the treasurer of the Ethiopia, and Eunuch of great authority under Candace the Queen. He had gone to Jerusalem to worship at the temple, and was now returning in his chariot, reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah.
The Holy Spirit said Philip, “go over and walk along beside the chariot!”
Philip ran over and heard what he was reading and asked, “do you understand it?”
“Of course not!” The man replied. “How can I when there is no one to instruct me!” And he begged Philip to come up into the chariot can sit with him.
The passage of scripture he had been reading from was this:
“He was led as a sheet to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before this shearers,, so he opened not his mouth;
“In his humiliation, justice was denied him; and who can express the wickedness of the people of his generation? For his life is taken from the earth.”
The Enoch asked Philip, “was Isaiah talking about himself or someone else?”
So Philip began with the same Scripture and then used many others to tell him about Jesus.
As they rode along, they came to a small pool of water, and the Enunch said “look — water! Why can’t I be baptized?”
“You can,” Philip answered, “if you believe with all your heart.”
In the Enunch replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.”
He stopped the chariot, and then went down into the water and Philip baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, in the Enoch never saw him again, but when on his way rejoicing.
Meanwhile, Philip discovered himself at Azotus. He preached the good news there and in every city along the way, as he traveled to Caesaria
Sam’s response
In the Scripture verse of the day we see Paul’s vision restored by Ananias. Can you imagine being Ananias? What would your reaction have been had God asked you to go and pray for the worst criminal who had killed everybody you knew?
This was pretty much what Ananias was asked to do, because up till this time Paul, whose name was Saul, had actually been slaughtering all the Christians and throwing them into jail as well.
This is all that Ananias knew of then Saul. But God has Ananias to go to Saul and in the Scripture Ananias does question God about this man. But God confirms that this is who he wants Ananias to go see an Ananias does so without question.
It’s not that we never can question God because we can! It’s okay to have questions… it’s okay to question God… I think we all have questions but sometimes these questions will only be answered by following through with faith action based on the word of God or from a word from God. In this case it was a word from God that moved Ananias and sent him to be a messenger from God and restore Saul’s site. Who then became a new creation in Christ known as Paul.
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