Fulfilling Our Calling

Stephen was a young man with so much promise in his life. Because of his faithfulness, he was selected to be a deacon in the church. But it quickly became evident that Stephen had a gift for preaching. People were coming to faith when he spoke, and miracles were even taking place.

Many probably thought that Stephen had a great ministry ahead of him because he was only a young man. However, because of his preaching, he was called to give an account before the Jewish Sanhedrin, which was like the Supreme Court of that day.

These very powerful men didn’t like Stephen’s preaching about Jesus Christ as the Messiah, and they called him to answer for it. Now, if Stephen had been careful, he could have gone home for dinner that night. Instead, he saw the possibilities of reaching the Sanhedrin with the gospel. So, he began to preach to them.

And as Stephen preached, they became so outraged that they put their hands over their ears and started to scream. It’s clear they didn’t want to hear what he had to say. But Stephen continued to preach, and they decided to execute him.

They killed him by stoning, and even as Stephen’s young life was being drained, he cried out, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” (Acts 7:60 NLT).

We might say, “That is tragic because it seems like God could have done so much through Stephen’s life.”

But here’s what we need to remember. We don’t know how long our lives will last. We all have a task to complete, a calling to fulfill. And the length of our lives is determined not by genes or statistics but by God. Our objective is to stay on course and do what God has set before us.

It very well may have been the testimony of Stephen that brought Saul of Tarsus under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. How do we know that? Because right on the heels of Stephen’s martyrdom, Saul went out to hunt down Christians. He left Jerusalem and went as far as Damascus in Syria to find those who were followers of Jesus and then arrest them and execute them.

But while Saul was on his way to do that, he met Jesus Himself. The Lord came to Saul on the road to Damascus and blinded him, and then Saul came to faith in Jesus Christ.

From the biblical record, we don’t know of anyone who personally shared the gospel with Saul. But Saul quite possibly was a member of the Sanhedrin. As such, Stephen’s bold preaching could have put him on this road and indirectly contributed to his conversion.

We can all look back on our lives as believers and identify people who contributed spiritually. God has put you where you are in that neighborhood, in that workspace, on that campus. Did you ever stop and think that maybe you are there for a reason? There are people in your world whom you need to reach out to.

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