This Sunday, we come to one of my absolute favorite scenes in the book of Acts. God arranges for Philip the evangelist to have a “chance encounter” with an Ethiopian eunuch as he travels along the road of a 2,000-mile, round-trip, spiritual pilgrimage to Jerusalem. A trip of that duration was extraordinarily expensive and quite risky. But his spiritual hunger compelled him to make the journey. He was seeking the living God and needed hope that would touch his soul.
So God sent Philip to rendezvous with him along the road. And the Ethiopian just so happens, at that very moment, to be reading a passage in Isaiah that points directly to Jesus. And Philip connects the dots for him. There’s no coincidence in any of this! This encounter was pre-arranged by the living God. He goes out of His way to reach out to this man and meet him at the point of his deepest need. And the good news of Jesus changed his life forevermore.
Let us rediscover the beauty of the Gospel. The good news of Jesus is for each one of us. We’re all broken. We’re all outsiders. We’re all sinners. And yet Jesus died that we might be forgiven and welcomed in. No matter what we’ve done, who we’ve become, or what’s been done to us, in Christ we are known completely, loved utterly, and forgiven entirely.
Come and see the good news of Jesus! After all, it’s for you. And you are indeed loved, more than you know.
Thank you for this inspiring message that shows how there’s no coincidence with God when He is working He is working.
This is beautiful!
Also In Isaiah, 56:7b is quoted Jesus famous line “for my house shall be called a house of prayer.” I figured out that what the Ethiopian might have been reading in Isaiah 56!