Daily Devotions

Acts 8: 2Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.

We see that there was a group of godly people who were ready to stand up against the persecution that the Jews were inflicting upon the believers. Here was the account when the temple zealots including Saul who was a young man then took Stephen one of the Christian leaders and stoned him to death outside the city walls.

Though the believers were outnumbered they were unafraid as we see that after Stephen had been martyred, the group of spirit filled believers came and took Stephen’s body for burial. It is recorded that they are the godly men who were with Stephen.

They mourned deeply for Stephen as he was a deeply loved leader among the believers. We can imagine the trauma that they had to endured when they see one of their leaders being stoned to a painful death.

When death occurs, it is a natural thing to be sorrowful and the loss of a loved one will result in pain and emotional hurt. This sadness is a natural effect of loss. Even in the animal kingdom we can see this expression of sadness when there is a loss by death.

In the midst of sorrow, God gave strength to Stephen who was the first martyr when God opened the heavens and Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God waiting to receive him. The bodily life is a temporary period that we spend on the earth, it is just a fraction of time in eternity.

When we get to heaven that is where we will be for eternity. Compared to eternity, our time on earth may be like a few short minutes of our lives. Thinking back we can remember when we were young and little children.

Just this week some of my former classmates organized a get together for the first time after 60 years have passed. Everyone who came together are already in the 70s and practically everyone could not recognize each other and had to introduce themselves again.

The bible tells us that our life span is 70 years and a little more if we are lucky. Looking at that all of us from our young school days are already living in our bonus years and we do not know when we will leave this world. Some of our friends have left this world and others in the years ahead would also die off.

But for us who know the Lord, we rejoice in knowing that when we pass on from this temporary earth we will move on to inherit the eternity in the heavenly kingdom with our Lord, Jesus Christ. We must be living with this hope as the early believers that no matter what happen on this earth we shall inherit our eternity in heaven.

Therefore we ought to encourage each other and to build up each other as we go through life on this earth.