You never find heaven opened save when the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ is in question. Whatever man may be, whatever I am, there is One Person on whom the eye of God can rest with perfect delight—and nothing God can do to express it, is too much.
There is nothing the children of God need to judge themselves about so much as not walking with their eye fixed on Christ. If God has taken you out of power of circumstances on earth, it is to shut you up to Christ above. Heaven is now the only place you have.
“Full of the Holy Ghost.” Do we Christians think enough of the possibility of that little word? The effect of it on Stephen was, that he looked up steadfastly into heaven; not an expression of the indwelling Spirit, such as man might expect, but his soul brought into what occupies God’s thoughts. O! for more of this bringing of our thoughts and hearts under all circumstances into that place where God is unhinderedly showing forth His power, and that in a Man in heaven.
Nothing has let saints of these days down spiritually so much as want of intercourse with the living Saviour at God’s right hand. I am left here, not that I may know myself saved, or to do a great deal, but to walk in communion with Him. Am I doing this?
Stephen gets that same light which was to fall a little while afterward on Saul of Tarsus. Christ let the glory of His Father fall on him. God presented to his soul that which enabled him to be perfectly quiet as to the scene of wicked men’s darkness, whence His Son has been cast out. We see what the power of it is.
“Stephen calling upon (or invoking), saying, Lord Jesus.” It is a distinct act of worship to the Lord Jesus. Stephen was there in weakness, and he must have the whole expression of the love of the heart of Christ. If you have been walking today with God as a people whom He has saved, and will have in the glory, you will have seen a quantity of things in which your need could only be met by communion with the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven.
“Stephen kneeled down.” The collectedness of his spirit is remarkable. What a contrast between human thoughts and divine, in a man’s heart! The rancor and hatred of the Jews, because God had uncovered Stephen’s heart to see the glory of Christ, and Stephen, like the Lord, praying, “Lay not this sin to their charge.” He received an answer to his prayer in Saul of Tarsus.
Christ is always before God, filling His eyes—Are you occupied with Him? And favored by the revelation of Him? If you are, He is more than an answer to your circumstances.