“Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established” (Proverbs 16:3, ESV).
For most of us, the job we do to earn a living may seem far removed from serving God and advancing His Kingdom. This proverb tells us how to reconcile this seeming incompatibility of working at your job with serving God.
When you commit the work that you do to the Lord, then you are asking God to consecrate it and use what you do to accomplish His will.
“They kept the man in custody until the Lord’s will in the matter should become clear to them.” (Leviticus 24:12, NLT).
During their wilderness wandering, the Israelites took a man into custody who had an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father. He had been in a fight with an Israelite man and during the fight, the man with the Egyptian father blasphemed God.
When this happened, the Israelites took him into custody and brought him to Moses for judgment. While Moses was waiting to hear from the Lord about the matter, they held him in custody without harming him, not taking matters into their own hands.
“Finding a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, we boarded and set sail. After we sighted Cyprus, leaving it on the left, we sailed on to Syria and arrived at Tyre, because the ship was to unload its cargo there. So we found some disciples and stayed there seven days. Through the Spirit they told Paul not to go to Jerusalem.” (Acts 21:2-4, HCSB).
In these verses the Apostle Paul was completing his third missionary journey and had determined to go to Jerusalem. Upon arriving in Tyre some disciples there told Paul through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that trouble awaited him in Jerusalem.
“And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:17, NLT)
After Peter proclaimed the gospel of Jesus in Caesarea to the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius, a Roman officer, Peter had to explain his actions to the apostolic leadership and believers back in Jerusalem.
As Peter recounted the sequence of events, he explained it was only by God’s initiative that he took the gospel to the Gentiles.
