52 Men of the Bible - The StudiesSample

# 47\. Stephen ## Explore Stephen was a unique guy, focused, passionate and full of the Holy Spirit. You couldn’t hold a candle to this guy, he was on fire. I like that and want that in my own life, but am I willing to go the way Stephen did? Probably not to be honest. Idea 1: Spirit filled One of the significant things we can gather from the life of Stephen, even though there isn’t a load of info about him, is that he was a man filled by the Holy Spirit. So often we can aspire to be a successful bloke at work, or at home with our family, or we want to say and do the right things at work. This is all good stuff, but to coin a phrase from a classic 80s film, the secret of our success – is in yielding to, and being filled by the Holy Spirit. At the risk of using some ‘church’ terms here; What does ‘being spirit filled’ mean to you? Do you ask the Holy Spirit to fill your life up each day? Idea 2: Dying how he lived I was chatting with a guy recently who was remembering a friend of his who had sadly passed away, he said this ‘well, he died how he lived: to be honest, isolated, a bit bitter and alone.’ That got me thinking that for lots of men they will die how they have lived. If they lived a life that was greedy, bitter, unforgiving, angry, set apart then they will probably die in a similar mind-set. If you apply this rule to Stephen, he lived a life of forgiveness, mercy, grace, loving and caring for others, how did he die? Well brutally, but even then he was forgiving. Incredible. How are you choosing to live and conduct your life? Is it the same way you wish to be when you die? Idea 3: Bad to good Here is the best bit, what happened in the life of Stephen was terrible, and he would not have known how his death could have been turned into a force for good, but it was. Until his death the small group that had gathered, the early church, was slowly picking up speed and making some ripples but God had bigger plans, global plans! After Stephen’s death a terrible persecution kicked off, the church was scattered into the nations, and as they went, they took with them the gospel! Fearlessly, boldly and without compromise the message of Jesus went global. Stephen’s death was a terrible moment but a catalyst for God to bring something amazing about. ## Action Is there, or has there been stuff in your life that has been terrible, but you have also seen good grow from it? How? What happened? What did that moment do to you? How did you grow from it?