Today's Bible reading is the 16th chapter of the Book of Acts. You can read it here at Bible Gateway: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2016&version=NASB

At the end of Acts chapter 15 we read Paul's words to Barnabas as he said, “Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” Having preached the gospel and having seen God add members to His church in the various places they had ministered, Paul and Barnabas would now return to the various cities to see how the people were. This return trip would include visits to the cites of Derbe and Lystra. It was at Lystra that Paul had healed the man who had been lame from his mother's womb and where Paul had eventually been stoned and dragged out of the city and left for dead after Jews from Antioch and Iconium had followed him there. This time Paul would meet the man he would later call his "true child in the faith" and a man of whom Paul would say he had "no one else of kindred spirit" in his letter to the Philippians. This man was Timothy. He would eventually be the recipient of two letters written by the Apostle Paul that speak of the close Christian bond they had in ministry. It is quite likely that Timothy had become a believer as God had worked through Paul and Barnabas when they first preached the gospel in the surrounding cities. In today's text we see that Timothy "was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium" and that Paul wanted to take him with them on their missionary journey. In the context of the passage it is evident that God had prepared Timothy's heart for ministry and he went. As they continued on we see that their intention of visiting the brethren in the cities they had previously ministered in was fruitful labor. The churches in these cities were being "strengthened in the faith" and their numbers were also increasing daily. Although the chapter has much content and I am unable to comment on its entirety in these "short thoughts", I will end by commenting on one last account in the passage. At the completion of their intended ministry of seeing how the brethren were in the cities they had previously preached the gospel, Paul would have a vision of man standing and appealing to them to come to Macedonia and help them. Traveling by land and by sea they would eventually arrive in Philippi and be given the opportunity to share the gospel with a group of women who had gathered together to pray on the Sabbath day. It is here that we read how God "opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul". This is a great reminder of how we are instruments in the Master's hands but He opens the heart. As Paul would later write to the Corinthian church, some of us plant and some of us water but it is God that gives the increase and therefore the One who receives the glory.