Tuned In – Palm Valley Youth

Scripture
Acts 7:59-60
As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”  He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!”  And with that, he died.

Observation
Stephen is being killed right now for telling people about Jesus.  The way they are killing him is by throwing massive stones or boulders at him until he dies.  As they are pegging him, He asks God not to hold the sin of killing him against them.  Basically, as Stephen is dying, he asks God to “forgive” the men who were killing him.  That’s right, he drops the spiritual F bomb and asks God to “forgive” the men for killing him.  If a lot of us were in Stephen’s shoes (getting stones thrown at us until we died), we might have dropped the F bomb as well, but it probably wouldn’t have been the spiritual F bomb. 

Application
I can’t believe that Stephen is asking God to forgive these people for killing him.  I would have probably been asking God to strike these people with lightning bolts for attempting to kill me!  Forgiving people is one of the hardest things in the world to do, especially when we didn’t do anything wrong.  Stephen sets a great example for me that regardless of how bad people treat me, my response should be to forgive them.  If Stephen could forgive people as he was being killed (arguably the worst day of your life), surely I can forgive people for making me have a bad day every now and then.  

Prayer
God thanks for pointing me to the story of Stephen today.  He set a great example to me for how I should treat those that “do me wrong.”  Please help me to remember this story in the future when I’m having a hard time forgiving someone.