Acts 7, 365 DAYS OF LOVE #45: SPECIFIC PRAYER

PASSAGE: Stephen's Speech to the Sanhedrin, The Stoning of Stephen

MEMORY VERSE: "Then he said to them, 'Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's'" -Matthew 22:21

NOTES: (v.1-54) The high priests asked Stephen of the charges that were pressed against him, and Stephen began to preach about Abraham. He spoke about how God promised Abraham a son, Isaac, who was the father of Jacob, who became the father of twelve patriarchs. The twelve patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, so they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him and rescued him so that he was made ruler all over Egypt. When the famine struck, his brothers came to him for food and Joseph revealed who he was, and they were reconciled. Then God fulfilled his promised to Abraham when the number of Egyptian people increased greatly. Moses was born, and he was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful. However, when he was 40, he killed an Egyptian and was caught by other people. So he fled to Midian for 40 years, until God came to him to send back to Egypt. He became their ruler and deliverer, but he was refused by the Egyptians.
"Our forefathers had the tabernacle of the Testimony with them in the desert. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen."
"You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy spirit!...you who have received the law that was put into the effect through angels but have not obeyed it."
-(v.55-60) At this, they people became furious and gnashed their teeth at him. Stephen, who was full of the Holy Spirit, looked up and saw the glory of God and said, "Look, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." They then dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.
When they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Lord, do not hold this sin against them."

ACT OF LOVE: Today, I decided to specifically pray for people during my prayer time. I reviewed some of the past requests from people that I wrote down in my prayer journal, and decided to spend some extra time praying again for these people. A lot of people in my prayer journal are people I don't normally talk to very frequently, so I used tonight to bless them in prayer!