Open Yet Discerning

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

OPEN YET DISCERNING

Acts 21:10-11

10 After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11 Coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, "The Holy Spirit says, 'In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.'"

NIV

Here we see, as we have seen throughout much of the Old Testament, a prophet speaking to someone, or a group of people, something from the mouth of God. It is not as though the Holy Spirit has not spoken directly to Paul before, but here we see the Holy Spirit using Agabus to speak to Paul. This could be our lesson today. We might have had the Holy Spirit speak to us directly in days past, but we should be open to the fact God might decide to speak to us through another person. Now that is not to say that people who come up and tell us that God told them to tell us is always the truth. Here is where we must engage the Spirit ourselves and depend on him giving us discernment. What Agabus told Paul was consistent with all the times the Spirit had warned Paul about what he could expect to happen. This was not some message from out in left field, some off the wall, bizarre message that had little sense or any thread of consistency with the plan of God for Paul. If we have been sensing the Holy Spirit dealing with us as far as something we are to do, or someplace we are supposed to be, and someone approaches us, who knows nothing of our past experience with the Spirit, or his urging upon us, and tells us something which confirms in our hearts that which we already have a sense of, then we should pay attention to those words. But if someone tells us something they say the Spirit urged them to, and it has absolutely nothing to do with what we have been sensing the Spirit urging us, perhaps we should simple smile, but ignore anything that person has to say. The Spirit is not conflicted nor does he give conflicting messages. If it is one thing we can be certain of God is consistently consistent and he is constant. Yet we should not ignore all words spoken to us in the name of the Spirit. We cannot always put the Spirit in a box, insisting he only works or speaks to us in one way. We need to be open, yet discerning.