11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. 12 From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.
13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.
-Acts 16:11-15
As we read through Acts we get to follow Jesus' first disciples go and spread his message to nearby areas. We get to see them perform miracles in God's name and preach the gospel to Jews and Gentiles alike. Just in chapter 16 we see Paul and Silas traveling all over the place preaching the word wherever they felt God was calling them to. And as we read I think we can forget who is really important as more and more people become Christian during this time. It's not Peter or Paul. It's God.
In these couple of verses Luke (He wrote the book of Acts) makes it clear why Lydia decided to become a follower of Christ. It wasn't from a convicting sermon from Paul or a one on one conversation she has with Silas. It says, "The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message." It was ultimately God who changed her heart to be able to accept Christ into her life. Here, Paul's message was important but without God working in Lydia's heart it would have been useless.
As Christians we go through our lives preaching the Gospel in many different ways; maybe it's by writing books, having a hard conversation or just showing His love through our actions. As we go about these things we can have peace in the fact that what we are doing is important, but ultimately God is doing the real work here. We can use this fact to humble ourselves if we ever start to think we're the reason why people start believing in Jesus. We can also use this fact if we start getting discouraged by people not starting to believe in Jesus. God is always at work, He will change people's hearts. Let's never forget it's never about us, it's always about God.
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