May 8, 2024
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Many of my friends in law enforcement don't really know what they're doing. On any given day, that is. Because no two days are the same. Their days are made up of responding to situations they can't predict. There's this voice that goes with them in their patrol car. It's the dispatcher. They will tell them where a crime or emergency is unfolding and dispatch them to go there. Suddenly, a situation becomes their assignment. Sounds a lot like following Jesus.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Situation...Your Assignment."
You might call God's Holy Spirit "heaven's Dispatcher." There's something God wants done and He uses your situation to position you to do it. One of Jesus' disciples, Philip, found himself hearing from heaven's Dispatcher - with an unusual assignment. Philip had been dispatched to a city in Samaria to introduce the people there to Jesus. The results were amazing. Demons cast out, the lame and paralyzed healed and many turning to Jesus.
And that's when the Dispatcher suddenly - and curiously - changed Philip's situation. It's in our word for today from the Word of God in Acts 8, beginning with verse 26. "Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, 'Go south to the road - the desert road." Leave the revival to go to the desert? Really? He went!
"So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official." The man was sitting in a chariot reading from the Book of Isaiah." Now the Dispatcher says, "Go to that chariot and stay near it." Philip does it. "Philip heard the man reading Isaiah." Eventually the man invited Philip to come up in his chariot to explain what he's reading. Ultimately, it says, Philip told him the good news about Jesus." The Ethiopian official comes to Jesus. And Philip, following the urgings of heaven's Dispatcher, is part of sending the Gospel to Africa through this influential man.
This is the kind of supernatural availability God wants you to look for and live for. I was on a trip with my son and family a couple weeks ago. Our situation: stopping at a truck stop for gas. Well my son went in the store and met a very frustrated truck driver who could not get his truck started. He had asked around to find some jumper cables - finally he found some. But he had struck out getting anyone who would help him use them to start his truck. I think my son was listening to the Dispatcher when he said he'd give it a try.
Well, they tried for 15 or 20 minutes. Nothing. The driver said, "You've done all you could. Thank you." At which point, Doug said, "Do you mind if I pray with you?" And Doug prayed for this young driver, in a prayer that expressed how much Jesus loved him. Then one more try. Nope.
As we got ready to pull away, suddenly that engine leaped to life with one deliriously happy driver shouting, "It started! It started!" That day, that truck driver had an encounter with Jesus. Because a believer realized a dead truck and a hurting driver were a divinely ordained situation. And his situation was his assignment.
It is for you, too. We just finished a video series that includes so many examples of this. It's called Your Hope Story. Believers positioned by their business... their cancer... their piano teaching... their tennis... their loss of a loved one - believers who realize that they are always Christ's ambassador. Wherever He assigns them.
So are you. Your days take on a new, eternal meaning... a new excitement - when you realize your situation is your assignment. That places you right in the middle of a life God wants to touch. Through you.