In Acts 16 Paul and his companions arrived in Philippi, encountered a group of women near a house of worship, and began to speak with them. Among those in the crowd was a successful woman named Lydia, who had made a name for herself through her business. What we know of Lydia, is that she worshipped God, but she didn’t truly know Jesus. So, the text says that as Paul shared the way of Jesus, “the Lord opened Lydia’s heart to respond to Paul’s message.” And when Lydia opened her heart, her life of success paled in comparison to the life of significance that Jesus was offering her. Lydia invited Paul and his companions into her home, and through this friendship, became a key leader in advancing the church further. Lydia opened up her heart, and out of that opened up her life to a story that was bigger than herself- a story that only God could write. For some of us, we’ve worshipped God but we’ve never really opened our heart to the message of Jesus shaping our everyday life and it’s time to change that. We are truly unleashed when we open up our heart and every aspect of our lives- relationships, resources, and residences to kingdom significance.
