Journey Led by God

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

JOURNEY LED BY GOD

Acts 13:16-20

16 Standing up, Paul motioned with his hand and said: "Men of Israel and you Gentiles who worship God, listen to me! 17 The God of the people of Israel chose our fathers; he made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt, with mighty power he led them out of that country, 18 he endured their conduct for about forty years in the desert, 19 he overthrew seven nations in Canaan and gave their land to his people as their inheritance.   20 All this took about 450 years.

NIV

In response to those men asking if they had any words of encouragement, Paul stands up and motions with this hand and begins. What the hand motion was all about we will never know but we do know what Paul said which is packed with history, but truth as well even for us today. Paul was speaking to both the men of Israel and the gentiles who had become Jews. We are going to see that Paul proves Jesus is the Messiah sent by God not only for the Jews but for the whole human race. Paul starts off this history with the time Israel was in Egypt and their journey to Canaan. What is the purpose of this? What can we learn from this? If nothing else we do see that God leads his people to the place he desires them to be. If there is the need to overthrow anything in the way of getting them to that place, God does the overthrowing. Although we may not be on an actually physical journey at the time, we are always, or should be, on a spiritual journey. Yet there can be times when we are on a physical journey as well. In both cases it would do us well to remember it is God who first makes us to prosper where we are, and it is his mighty hand who will lead from wherever we are to where he wants us to be. We should also note that he endured their conduct in the desert. They were not the greatest followers God has ever had, complaining and even rebelling many times. They were discontent with their situation and moaned and groaned to Moses a great deal about it. They even felt at times it would be better to go back and serve the Pharaoh as slaves then be where God was leading them. We should be aware of our lives so that we are not thinking like those Israelites did. We cannot afford to be discontent where God is leading us. We should not complain about our situation in life, as God is leading us on a journey, both physical and spiritual. We are headed to a place of our inheritance. Certainly in the spiritual realm, that is heaven, but in the physical realm we still do not know where we are headed, as those Israelites did not know. But what we do know is that God will lead us to where we should be. It could be that we are where he has led us to and we are in the place we should be. We need to remember the purpose of where he led them, to be in the center of the trade world, with many people from different lands passing through their place. We are certain God wanted them to be an influence in the land, infiltrating the cultures that passed through. But those people allowed the cultures to infiltrate their thinking, their culture. We should be aware that God leads us to a place not just because it is our inheritance, but so that we can be an influence on the culture around us. So we can take a stand for God. In our neighborhood as well as in the local church we attend. Standing for God, being an influence on others, infiltrating their thinking, not being infiltrated. God will lead us to where we should be, we need to follow that spiritual path and also that physical path, remember we are on a journey led by God.