Acts 6:3 ‘Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.’

Acts 6:5 ‘…and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit…’

What an awesome thing for people to be able to say about you. Can people say this about you? Is one of the ways that people describe you as ‘full of the Holy Spirit’? This is a wonderful compliment. I pray that others would be able to say this about my life. Stephen must have been a man who desired and pursued this aspect in His life. It did not happen by accident or by default, but rather by quality decision and choice. We can also make those quality decisions and choices for our own lives.

THE HOLY SPIRIT TAKES US FROM ORDINARY TO EXTRAORDINARY

The Holy Spirit makes all the difference in our lives. My late father had been in ministry for about 8 years before he discovered the person and work of the Holy Spirit in his own life. From that point on everything changed and his life and ministry went from ordinary, to quite frankly, extraordinary. Years later I wanted to document all his sermons over the years so that we could use them in future. I discussed it with him and he told me to completely disregard all his messages prior to the infilling of the Holy Spirit in his life. He regarded those messages of little or no value compared to the difference the Holy Spirit made in his life and the resultant subsequent messages/sermons. I told him that he was being too hard on himself, but he told me that that was not the case, but that was how important the life transforming person of the Holy Spirit actually was, that anything done without His influence should be disregarded. If we are truly yielded to the Holy Spirit, there is no stopping point to what He can do in and through us.

Acts 6:8 ‘Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people.’

Here was a man who must have been gifted administratively, but because of the Holy Spirit, the Lord used him greatly beyond his natural gifting.

Acts 6:9-10 ‘Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called) –Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia– who began to argue with Stephen. But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.’

He moved from ordinary to, quite frankly, extraordinary. The Holy Spirit’s influence moved from natural to supernatural.

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