Acts 13:47-48 “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.”

The basis on which God saves anyone from death and hell is relatively easy to understand. A trade, an exchange of sorts, took place at Jesus’ cross. There he satisfied God’s justice for the sins of the whole world. The debt of all people was paid. The penalty for the whole of humanity was served and erased. Forgiveness was secured for the entire population.

The fate of any particular individual is a little trickier to understand. Some believe God’s grace, receive it, and are saved. Some reject God’s grace and are lost. We see both happen in this brief story from Acts. The bothersome question has been, “Why some, not others?” Does responsibility for both faith and unbelief belong to God? Are they both the sole choice of man?

The Lord does not feel obligated to follow normal human logic here. Of course, when has he ever felt a need to limit himself to our understanding? Precisely because he is God, his mind, his ways, his understanding get to be bigger than ours. When someone doesn’t believe the gospel, the fault lies entirely with them. “Since you reject it,” Paul says.

When people believe the gospel, it is their own faith to be sure. It is working in their hearts, not someone else’s. But they can’t claim any credit for it: “…all who were appointed for eternal life believed.” The Lord makes sure of their faith in ways that go beyond our investigation.

The upshot isn’t to provide us with an intellectual understanding of the process. Who can say they really understand it? It is rather to leave us with the comfort and confidence that our salvation from first to last, from forgiveness to faith, lies entirely in God’s hands. We are saved by grace, a gift, all the way.

And that is important to remember for our life and witness in the part of the world we call home. “All who are appointed for eternal life will believe.” God has made you and me a light, and our responsibility begins and ends with doing what lights do: they shine. What impact that will have on the darkness, where they will light new lights of faith, we can leave to the Lord who has had this all sorted out from the very start.

Lights don’t shine by command. You don’t talk them into it. They shine because of what they are. It’s what lights do. God has made you a light. Let it shine, and let him worry about the rest.