| Sermon Thought by PKD Lee |
Read Acts 16:16-34
Romans 8:29 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Paul saw his imprisonment at Philippi as an opportunity that God had brought into his life. Because of this attitude of his, it led to the conversion of the Philippian jailor. Do we see serendipity occurrences as from God for His purposes or do we see them as intrusions into our life?
Would we in Paul’s position have made the jailer an enemy for life or would we have shared the gospel with him? Paul got the opportunity to share the gospel by his life as a witness – singing while in chains and not escaping when the opportunity came. Does your life project Christ?
One of the things the Bible teaches us is that if our life is surrendered to Jesus, nothing happens to us without God being in it. Whether the occurrence is a happy event or a troublesome one, we need to see what purpose could God have in it. When my daughter was admitted into hospital at the age of 6 months and the doctor said surgery was essential, how does one take that as an occurrence from God? Instead of spending time worrying, we took that as an opportunity to distribute tracts in the hospital and pray with patients. At the end of three or four days my daughter was discharged without surgery.
If I had worried and looked only at my problem, an opportunity would have been missed.
But for this to happen, our life needs to be totally surrendered to Jesus, so that worldly distractions do not distract us and make us miss God given opportunities.