- Past answers to prayer don’t determine future answers; we must look for God to do what is best today, not what was best yesterday.
- God always answers the prayers of His people. But some answers appear wrong at first glance, because we don’t comprehend His loving purposes.
- Stephen was willing to die because he understood the supreme reality of the spiritual, and valued it more than temporal considerations.
- The ultimate goal of prayer isn’t self-preservation, but God’s work in others.
- Two loving objectives:
The persecution instigated by Stephen’s death thrust the church out into the world.
Right-answered prayer is often God’s means of moving us out in mission.
Faith isn’t just about us; it’s about lost people!
Stephen’s death fostered the conversion of God’s foremost missionary spokesman.
Saul would become Paul, the great missionary to the gentile world.
- When God answers prayer, it is God's gift, even if he answers differently to what we ask for, it protects us from ourselves and leads us towards our destiny.