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it was Jesus. Jesus was in his heart and he now had the character
of the Lord. That’s fruit; when you are made like Jesus and
when you are conformed into His likeness. That takes a
miracle. Stephen was not some puppet that the Lord was
putting words in his mouth.
I’m sure Stephen was so focused on Christ that he was
distracted from being stoned. This is an amazing miracle. Acts.
7:58 says that they laid the robes of the ones who were stoning
him at Saul’s feet, “And when they had driven him out of the
city, they began stoning him, and the witnesses laid aside their
robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.” When Stephen
was dying, I don’t think he was saying, “I hope the Lord uses
this redemptively.” He was too busy seeing Jesus. It was all
automatic. It was fruit. Fruit is intuitive. We don’t have to
think about it. He didn’t think about forgiving. He didn’t think
about surrender. He was like Jesus. It came naturally. He had
a forgiving heart. He had a surrendered heart.
I don’t think Stephen saw who was holding the
garments. I don’t think he knew that the number one enemy of
Christ was holding some of the garments. The number one
enemy of Christ was the Apostle Paul and he became the
number one friend of Christ.
If God has ever blessed you through the writings of Paul
and his thirteen epistles, bow your head and thank God for
Stephen. God used Stephen to lead Paul to Christ. That’s fruit.
He wasn’t trying to have fruit. He was just looking at Jesus.
He was enjoying the Lord but God was reaching out through
Him.
It wasn’t just Paul that got saved that day. Stephen’s
death, the Bible says, ignited a persecution. It was because of
Stephen. Christians were scattered like seeds and a great
revival in Samaria took place. And in Ethiopia God saved
people and the gospel went to Africa. Thousands were saved
in Antioch. Through Cornelius the gospel went to Caesarea.
Stephen just enjoyed the Lord. The Lord was his life. Fruit is
not only works that come from you but it transforms you and
you become like the Lord Jesus. This is what is on my heart to
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