Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional

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Finally, those who are filled with the Holy Spirit will intercede for others (Acts 7:60). Stephen was falsely accused, falsely arrested, and was about to be stoned, and yet he prayed for those who were about to murder him. What compassion! The only way Stephen could do this was because he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Eternity Is at Stake The Bible tells us that we are separated from God because we have sinned. But God loves us— He loves you, He loves me—and He wants us to be part of His family forever. He loves us so much that He sent His only Son into the world to die as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. All we need to do is reach out in faith and accept Christ as our Savior and Lord: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NIV). For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

My friends, be filled with the Holy Spirit. Eternity is at stake. Are you living a life that is pleasing to God, or are you following your own path? Perhaps now is the time to return to Him. Begin or rekindle your relationship with Jesus today. Why should we be thankful? Because God has blessed us, and we should be thankful for each blessing. Thank God for the Material Blessings That He Gives YouSecond, unlike the Sanhedrin, those who are filled with the Holy Spirit welcome the truth (Acts 7:55–56). Stephen sees Christ standing at the right hand of God, and he was glad to commit his spirit to God. Conversely, those who were not filled with the Spirit began to “cry out in a loud voice” because they heard the truth and wanted to drown it out by their own words (Acts 7:57). They also covered their ears, trying to prevent the truth from affecting them. 3. Intercede for Others

Historians will probably call our era “the age of anxiety.” Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and His will for us. When we make anything else our goal, frustration and defeat are inevitable. Though we have less to worry about than previous generations, we have more worry. Though we have it easier than our forefathers, we have more uneasiness. Though we have less real cause for anxiety than our predecessors, we are inwardly more anxious. Calloused hands were the badge of the pioneer, but a furrowed brow is the insignia of modern man. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,One of the best ways to get rid of discouragement is to remember that Christ is coming again. The most thrilling, glorious truth in all the world is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. When we look around and see pessimism on every side, we should remember the Bible is the only Book in the world that predicts the future. The Bible is more modern than tomorrow morning’s newspaper. The Bible accurately foretells the future, and it says that the consummation of all things shall be the coming again of Jesus Christ to this earth. If your life is dismal, depressed, and gloomy today, Christ can turn those dark clouds inside out. The sunlight of His love can still shine into the darkest part of your life.

Like Stephen, being filled with the Holy Spirit needs to be a way of life for us. Too often we only want to be filled with the Spirit on Sundays, and as soon as we leave our church service, we return to our worldly routines of mundane tasks, acceptable temptations or angry confrontations.We are stewards of our time. God has given each one of us a little “chunk of eternity” called time. These golden moments of opportunity are doled out to us for our benefit and for God’s glory. If we use them wisely, they are woven by God’s omnipotent hand into the fabric of eternity. Henry Thoreau cautioned, “You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.”“He who has no vision of eternity,” said Carlyle, “has no hold on time.”“Only one life, ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last” is the sentiment of every man who desires to be a good steward of his time. We are entrusted with a small portion of the capital of time. If we invest it wisely, it will pay dividends throughout eternity. The fact of the matter is that in our fast-paced society, with so many different distractions around every corner, it is easy to be filled with a worldly mindset and not be filled with the Holy Spirit. That, however, is no excuse.