Stephen's Prayers

 Stephen was a martyr for the sake of the gospel. He stood up for the truth and spoke the gospel of Jesus to anyone who would listen. Then, he was called before the Jewish leaders for his witness. He showed them from the Bible how God had worked to bring Jesus, the One promised to Moses. He called them out for their hard hearts, and they stoned him to death. As he was dying, he prayed two very important prayers. (Acts 7:59,60) I hope that all of us, as believers, would pray these things from a pure heart if this was ever to happen to us. 

"Master Jesus, take my life." I pray we are all living for Jesus in such a way that we have already given our life fully to Jesus and His service. If that is the case, it would be easy to turn our life over to Him as we were being martyred. However, if we are living for ourselves, we would probably not be such a witness and be so faithful to the Lord till the end. Which will it be? If we were being stoned to death, would we pray sincerely for those who were killing us to be forgiven of that sin? I believe that pray can only come from a pure heart that is like Jesus' heart, as He prayed the same thing at His crucifixion. However, it is the perfect example of complete forgiveness, no matter what anyone does to us. By praying this prayer he was asking God to forgive murderers. That is very hard to do, but we should be able to do that and leave the justice up to the Lord. In this case, he was praying for Saul to be forgiven, too, since he agreed with the killers. Could that have been the prayer that started the path to Saul being saved and becoming a great apostle of Jesus? I am not sure of that, but I know God did work on Saul's heart, and He forgave him of his sins completely. That is God's heart, and it should be our heart, too. 

#NHBaptistdotorg

Tomorrow, I intend to read Acts 8-10.