When God Does a Quick Work

What would you want to see God do if, within the next three weeks of your life, he accomplished something miraculous and life altering?

Let’s look at a moment when God did this in Paul’s travels. “Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures” (Acts 17:1-2, ESV). Paul was only in this city for three weeks and only spoke three times before persecution forced him to flee.

I wonder if Paul, Silas and Timothy thought, “If only we could’ve been there longer, God really could’ve moved. It was too short a time for God to really start a powerful church in that city; three weeks just isn’t enough.”

If we look at history, though, Paul probably wrote his letter to the Thessalonian church about six months later, and he said, “We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3). This is incredible! The Holy Spirit was so present, powerful and alive that within just three Sabbaths, miracles took place and a godly, influential church arose. These believers were only six months old in the Lord, and they had already become a testimony to all of Macedonia (see 1 Thessalonians 1:7).

That's a great encouragement to me. How about you, my friends? Does it encourage you to say, “If these young believers can so grasp the Word of God in six months, what if I allowed the Spirit to revive my heart in the same way? What if I was stirred once again to say, ‘God, let me devour your Word’”?

Oh, may God give us a hunger to wake up early in the morning and not just go through the motions of reading our Bibles! May we pray, “God, I want to be someone who loves your Word. I want to be someone who’s consumed with knowing you more intimately. I want to be someone who is growing in understanding and discernment about your commands. I want to be someone who breaks the scriptures open daily and eats of it and gets life from it.”