Stephen was stoned, but he was not looking at the rocks, but at the sky ...
“Let NOT your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.” John 14.1
"Let not your heart be troubled" literally means "do not feel disturbed".
Disturbance is an emotional imbalance, an absence of peace, and it is like living with a whirlwind within you.
This usually happens when the person loses something or someone. Many are "disturbed" by the idea that they no longer have a specific person, position, title, power, etc. And they end up surrendering to fear, doubts and confusions of the heart.
The disciples were in serious emotional confusion when they heard that the Lord would leave them and return to the Father.
“Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you.” John 13:33
So, what is the vaccine against disturbance ?
“In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” John 14:2
The Lord Jesus did not lie when He said that if we believe, we would heal the sick, cast out demons and be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Why would He lie about the heavenly home, which is eternal salvation?
“But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,” Acts 7:55
Stephen was stoned, but he was not looking at the rocks, but at the sky. His eyes were fixed on the home in heaven, and not on his own life in this world. He valued the eternal and despised what was momentary.
We must always use Intelligent Faith and think, "What is happening to me, what I am missing, is nothing compared to the heavenly abode that Jesus sent to me." That was the faith that was inside Stephen.
Let's believe!?
Bishop Gonçalves
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