Acts 9:32; 36-42
Sometime after the ascension of Jesus the Apostle Peter had been traveling about visiting the believers in Lydda. While he was there, some disciples from the nearby city of Joppa, 125 miles above the Mediterranean Sea, came and urged him to return to their city with them. There a disciple named Tabitha, also called Dorcas, who had a reputation for always doing good and helping the poor, became sick and died.
Peter went along with the men and when he arrived, he was taken upstairs to the room where they had laid her body. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.
Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called the believers and the widows and presented her to them alive. This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.
Dorcas was a woman with a mission. She didn’t have a particularly high profile life. She was not a scholar, or a business woman, she was probably not wealthy. We know nothing about whether she had a husband or children, or a large home where she could entertain. We do know that she was a believer in Jesus and that she was apparently well known and very much loved in her sphere of influence where she had obviously made a huge impact.
Makes me think of what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:26-31:
“Think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us the wisdom from God – that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”
God had called Dorcas into relationship with Himself through faith in Jesus – but she was not influential, or necessarily of noble birth. As a matter of fact, in the culture of her day, she may have been seen as inconsequential – a foolish, lowly thing. But she was anything but. She was a woman with a mission – a mission to demonstrate the mercy and grace and love of the Lord Jesus Christ to the widows, and the poor who were her neighbors.
Dorcas was a one woman sewing circle, using her gifts of needlework to bless and encourage others. She could very well have been a widow herself, maybe barely getting by on what she made as a seamstress, which made her uniquely qualified to minister to other poor widows around her. The faithful living out of Dorcas’ mission would be greatly missed by those to whom she ministered.
How gracious of our Heavenly Father to take our neediness and trials and redeem them by giving us a ministry to others in the same boat! The Apostle Paul addresses this very thing in 2 Corinthians 1:3-5:
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.”
What is YOUR mission? You know, you don’t have to be wise, or influential, or come from a noble family to have a mission. You don’t have to have gone to the best schools, or made a name for yourself at your company, or written a book, or have a substantial bank account. You can be a simple seamstress, or carpenter. You can have a good education or no education. You can be young or old. If you have been given new life through faith in Jesus, He can use you to minister His love, compassion and grace to others. He’s especially good at using your trials to give you a heart for ministering to others going through the very same trials. Who else knows about the comfort of Jesus in that place better than you who have gone through it?
So what is YOUR mission? What gifts has the Lord given to you that you can use to serve others?
How has He uniquely equipped you to know what someone else is going through so you can comfort them like no one else?
Who in your sphere of influence needs the comfort of the Lord through YOU today? How can you minister it?
No comments:
Post a Comment