Bleeding Hearts and Bloody Hands

How many of y’all remember the story of Stephen? His story is short, just taking up a handful of verses in chapters 6 & 7 of Acts. We don’t know much about him. We don’t know about his background. His parents aren’t mentioned. We aren’t told if he was an educated man or not. Was he a smart man? Was he business minded? Did he have a wife and children? Was he from a good devout family? What were his dreams? What did he do before he was chosen by the church?

We don’t know. The only thing we know about him is that he was “full of faith and of the Holy Ghost.” And that says more about the man than any list of his history or background ever could. Here was a man who had emptied himself of his own wants, his own desires, his fears and dreams. He had to, because the only way to be full of something is to empty yourself of everything else. I don’t know what  he’d been holding onto before he came to know Christ, but I do know that he wasn’t holding onto it anymore.

And this is where we find Stephen, full of the Spirit of God.

It was a hectic crowd that day. The men and women gathered around Stephen were angry, hostile even. They’d been drawn by the power of God that rested on Stephen, unable to resist the wisdom and spirit that rested on him. They flung wild accusations at him, wanting to destroy him as they had his Savior. Stephen, though, was not worried. He sat and listened, trusting in his Heavenly Father.

“Look at him. He looks like an angel,” whispered a young scribe.

“How can he be so calm?” asked a councilman.

And there amongst the crowd, sat a young man who would cause untold trouble for the church, wondering the very same thing.

As Stephen exhorted on the greatness of God and cautioned them against the hardness of their hearts, the young man shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The words sliced at his heart, opening a wound that caused him to become angry. With relief, he watched as the crowd turned against Stephen. He followed along as they carried the faithful follower of Christ out of the city. Still, when that first stone was throne at the first martyr of Christ, he couldn’t help but feel that same wound open a little wider. By the time Stephen cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge,” Saul felt sick.

In an attempt to heal that wound, he “made havoc of the church.”

But somehow I can’t believe he ever forgot that simple prayer that he had heard Stephen utter with his last breath. It was an outrageous prayer, if he had ever heard one. It was a prayer of mercy, a prayer of love. A prayer of forgiveness for the very men that murdered him. It was grace in its truest sense.

And that prayer of Stephen’s was answered in a greater way than he could have ever imagined. For soon, on the Damascus Road, God would answer that outrageous prayer. There on the Damascus Road, God would give mercy to the very one that Stephen had interceded for.

That is why we must intercede for those we love. Intercession is not a futile pastime. It is not a ritual we go through. Intercession allows us to touch heaven for the most hardened people that otherwise might never be carried before the throne of grace. People who this world needs in the Christian fight. People with bleeding hearts and bloody hands. People that noone else wants to pray for.

These are the people that we are to intercede for. These are the people that we are to love and extend mercy to. But first we must empty ourselves. Because it’s only by the Spirit of God that these people will be drawn to Christ, and in order to be full of His power, we have to give Him room. It’s not about our wants, desires and fears. It’s about the Savior and His kingdom.

So let Him really fill you. Let Him change you and fill you with His power. Because there are other Sauls out there waiting to become Pauls. And even though our “story” may only amount to a handful of verses in the Bible, like Stephens, our impact could bring in more Pauls, whose books fill up the New Testament.

So, be a prayer warrior. Seek God’s face for that father. That daughter. That uncle. That cousin. That friend.

Don’t stop. Don’t give up.

Keep praying because God’s grace is still healing bleeding hearts and cleansing bloody hands.