We have a dear elderly Christian friend who needs help with transportation.  So, with some frequency, we have taken her to church, the airport, grocery shopping, and to doctor appointments. It is part of her personality that she wants to be more than punctual. She wants to arrive 30 minutes early for any appointment.

We have many appointments in life beyond social or medical appointments. There is “A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted” (Ecclesiastes 3:2). But have you ever considered that God also gives us divine appointments to share with lost souls the Gospel of the Grace of God? In our text, the angel of the Lord tells Philip to leave a fruitful ministry in Samaria and go south into the desert. As he obeys, Philip “coincidentally” meets an Ethiopian eunuch who is reading from the Book of Isaiah. Clearly, this was a spiritually-minded man. It also appears that he was spiritually prepared to hear a gospel message of salvation just as it was with Lydia, “…whose heart the Lord had opened…” (Acts 16:14). We are not suggesting God chooses only some to salvation and irresistibly draws them. We believe that God would “…have all men to be saved…” (I Timothy 2:4) and that He “…lighteth [with the conviction of the Holy Spirit] every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9). Each soul has a free will to accept or reject salvation. We are suggesting is that it is likely that God still puts lost souls, with spiritually prepared hearts, directly in the path of saved people. Only believers can share with them the message of eternal life through faith in the Lord Jesus, and we must not remain silent when such opportunities arise.

Just think of the eternal consequences if Philip had concluded that he could not leave a thriving ministry, or he decided that he was too tired when God directed him to go into the desert. This Ethiopian may have been eternally lost, and Philip would have missed the eternal reward for sharing the gospel. When people cross our path, there is no way for us to know who is saved or lost, or how much their heart is prepared to trust in Christ alone. What we do know is that God has given ALL of us the ministry of reconciliation. Therefore, we must be looking constantly for opportunities to share the Gospel of Grace.