The Master's Heart

My quiet time the other day found me reading from Acts chapter 6. The scene is this: the early church is really starting to take off. The twelve disciples are preaching the word all over and at the same time trying to take care of the widows and orphans. The problem was that they just couldn't do it all. So they set in motion a plan to choose 7 of the best men that the church had to offer to minister to the ones so often overlooked. The twelve disciples, men who had walked with God incarnate for years, knew where His heart is; with the poor, the lonely, the hurting, the sick, with the widows and the orphans. The solution they came up with was not to neglect these precious ones, but to choose the most Godly people to oversee their care. Acts 6 :3 says, "...seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business." I like that qualification "full of the Holy Spirit", it says that these people deserved the best. The next few verses go on to say the first of those chosen was Stephen. It says, "And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit...", obviously this was God's man. Stephen was so much God's man that it says those that arose against him and disputed him, "..were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke.". The thing that I find the most incredible is the fact that Satan and all of his forces were probably on overdrive trying to keep up with all that was going on with this new radical wave of "Christians" who were taking the world by storm for God. Of all the people, in all the ministries that they could have chosen to attack, they attacked Stephen, one of the chosen to care for the orphans and widows. Stephen is the first recorded martyr for the Gospel of Christ. The first. He set the bar, so to speak. He was faithful even to death. The enemy could have gone after Peter to kill him. After all, he was "the rock" right? They could have gone after John, the one whom the savior loved. I have heard it said that a great military leader goes for the heart, the core of their enemy's strength. How interesting that Satan's first fatality in this great battle was Stephen, the one chosen for his faith and total dependence on the Holy Spirit, the one chosen to look after God's widows and orphans. Is there any question where our Master's heart is?