DAY #214: Acts 21:1-26

Having said farewell to the Ephesian elders at Miletus, Paul continued his journey to Jerusalem. The ship put in at Tyre, in Syria, its destination, giving Paul and his group a week’s rest before they shipped out again.

Paul and his traveling companions found the local believers and stayed with them a week.
After the week was over, the congregation of believers, including wives and children, went down to the shore to see them off. As at Miletus, the farewell from Tyre was a tender time of prayer. Whenever someone says that Paul was cold or harsh (based on the stinging rebukes he passed out to churches like those in Galatia and Corinth or to individuals like Barnabas and even Peter), lead the person to passages such as these.

Spurred along by the graphic and foreboding prophecy of Agabus, the believers in Caesarea begged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. Even Paul’s traveling companions added their voices to the crowd. Why would he go to certain imprisonment in Jerusalem? The answer was that Paul knew God wanted him to go.

No one enjoys pain, but a faithful disciple wants above all else to please God. Paul's focus was on the gain not the pain. The ultimate issue: “The will of the Lord be done.”

Upon their arrival in Jerusalem, Paul and his friends were welcomed cordially. There were great tensions in Jerusalem during this period. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus described this time period (approximately a.d. 56 or 57) as being filled with political unrest and strong Jewish nationalism. There were several uprisings by Jews against their Roman leaders—all of which had been brutally put down by Felix, the Roman procurator.

This caused even more anger from the Jews and intensified their hatred for Gentiles. Paul, missionary to the Gentiles, entered the city with news of vast Gentile conversions.

It was into this rats nest of problems, infighting, and racial tensions that Paul stepped. Once again, he continued preaching the singular message that God gave him - for both Jews and Gentiles - that salvation did not depend on keeping the law, rather it was depended on a personal relationship with Jesus.

Rumors began t be spread about Paul. He continued to preach. Others sought to detour Paul form his message by bogging him down in endless conversations about the law and ceremonial principles. Paul continued to preach.

Finally, we see a familiar pattern play out. A group of Jews from Asia spotted him in the Temple and incited a crowd to seize him. Dead set in their determination to reject the message of salvation in Christ, these opponents of Paul refused to look objectively at the facts. Instead, they whipped the mob into a frenzy by making a series of false and highly inflammatory accusations against the apostle. Only the quick action of a detachment of Roman soldiers saved Paul from being beaten to death.

SO WHAT? (what will i do with what i have read today?)

I will finsih well. I will fulfill what the mission God has given me to carry out.

What keeps us from from fulfilling the call of God on our lives? Busyness? Sidetracked? Apathy? Loneliness? Hurt? Betrayel?

Paul had one passion - one pursuit - one ambition. Preach the Gospel. Reach people for Christ. What is the mission God has given you? How's the mission going? I appreciate so much what Paul tells us in Romans 12:8 (NLT)

“If your gift is to encourage others, do it! If you have money, share it generously! If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility! If you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly!”

Stop Making excuse for why you haven't been faithful at fulfilling your duties and responsibilities. Just do it. Start today. Start right now. Once you know you’ve gotten off track, once you know you’ve been distracted, once you know you’ve gotten detoured from something that’s important in your life, start back on it immediately – not next month, next week, next year, tomorrow. You do it now!

This week I read this story. “It was a fog shrouded morning of Judy 4, 1952 when a young woman names Florence Chadwick waded into the waters off Catalina Island. She intended to swim the channel from Catalina to the California coast. Long distance swimming was not new to her. She had been the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions. The water was numbing cold that day. The fog was so thick she could hardly see the boat in her party. Several times sharks had to be driven away with rifle fire. She swam more than fifteen hours before she asked to be taken out of the water. Her trainer tried to encourage her to swim on since they were so close to land. But when Florence looked all she saw was fog so she quit only a half-mile from the coast. Later she said, `I’m not excusing myself. But if I could have seen the land I could have made it.’ It wasn’t the cold or the fear or the exhaustion that caused Florence Chadwick to fail. It was the fog.”

Many times we fail to finish what we start not because of peer pressure, not because of fear, not because of fatigue. But because we loose our focus. We get distracted by other things. We can’t see what God has in store for us in heaven. We forget that this is not all there is to life. There is another life waiting for us. This is just the training school. We loose sight of the goal. So we quit too soon.

Two months later, Florence Chadwick, on a clear day, swam from Catalina to the shore in record time. She could see the goal.

The right question when you’re starting to be discouraged in life is not, “What will make me feel good?” but “What does God want me to do? What’s the right thing to do in this situation knowing that He’s going to reward me?”

Galatians 6:9 (NLT) says, “Don’t get tired of doing what is good. Don’t get discouraged and give up, for you will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time.”