messy heart.

I am always amazed at the character of God. There is a passage of Acts 8 that I don’t think I’ve ever read before.

Here’s the scene: Jesus has died and resurrected and the disciples are spreading the Gospel and people everywhere are coming to the knowledge of Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit calls Philip, one of the disciples, to travel in a certain direction to a certain road. When he arrives, he sees an Ethiopian eunuch who was a court official for the Ethiopian queen. This guy is reading from the book of Isaiah, and Philip is urged by the Holy Spirit to go talk to him. The Ethiopian is reading a snippet of prophecy about Jesus that had been written hundreds of years earlier. Philip asks the man if he understands what he’s reading, and in a shockingly humble and vulnerable response, the Ethiopian man admits that he doesn’t and he needs it to be explained. Right there, Philip gets to explain the amazing news of Jesus, whom the prophecy was about, and the Ethiopian man sees a body of water and says (this is literally what my Bible says for this quote), ”See, there is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” So the man receives the Salvation of Christ and gets baptized right there. When he came up from the water, Philip was taken away by the Holy Spirit and the man went on his way, praising God, his eternity changed.

Now, this is remarkable to me, because this unnamed man was a specific assignment for Philip— the Holy Spirit sent Philip to find the man and speak to the man about Christ. God PURSUED and INITIATED the relationship. Who knows how much this man influenced the people in his life after this moment. Maybe he is spoken of in a later chapter, but either way, we see the process laid out for us. The heart of God longs to save, the Holy Spirit guides us, the obedient disciple goes, the people are introduced to the amazing truth of God’s love for us, and then they go on their way and love other people to the Cross of Christ. This man was just snatched up by God to be blessed and be a blessing. How refreshing it was to be reminded that Christ desires, sends, and saves His people.