Good morning and happy Sunday, the Sabbath day. Did you know that historically, we know that Jesus was resurrected on a Sunday and to this day that is why we mainly worship on Sundays? (John 20:1) Of course, we should not only limit our worship of Him to one day a week but that’s kinda how it is these days. Don’t think that you have to go to a building only on Sundays to worship God. You can sing praises to Him and preach His Word in your heart 7 days a week!
Speaking of preaching His Word, Margie and I went with some friends to another local Fort Worth Church on Friday night after dinner. It's always good to get out and experience other worship services to see whats going on. But this brings up a VERY important subject. Of what beliefs and doctrines might you be sitting under? As I was sitting in this service listening to a preacher that I did not know at all, it really made me start to think about how blind I have been in the past to God’s Word. For so many years I was like a blindfolded man being fed by someone else. I knew not what I was eating for I was blindfolded, blinded to what was right before me. I could only know what I had eaten after it was fed to me. It had already entered my body. My point? This is a huge part of the 5MC, to encourage daily time in God’s Word so that YOU can know His Word. How else will you know what you’re being fed in our churches? By reading God’s Word you are taking off the blind fold and you will know exactly what you are being fed. No Christian should simply just believe or assume that they are being given the true Word of God by anybody, even their own Pastor. We need to be so immersed in Gods Word that we are able to discern and protect our own spiritual welfare. Spend time in God’s Word every day and prepare yourself to be aware of whats being said about it by anybody at anytime. Your personal knowledge of God’s Word is just that, personal, it is yours and is a part of you, it can never be taken away.
Marge & I enjoyed a great time with our Sunday morning small group last night. Great food, great conversation, lots of laughs over Win, Lose or Draw and all in a loving, caring Christ filled environment. What a blessing our small group is to us! If you’re not part of a small group, go find one! (We’re actually a part of THREE every week!) Also, tonight is a big day for us as we’ll be hosting our first home group. Please pray for the group that God will assemble tonight and that they will be touched by His Word.
This morning it’s Acts chapter 21 and we find Paul travelling to Jerusalem even though he knows that trouble will greet him there. We pick up right after he has said his beautiful farewell speech to the Ephesian church elders at Miletus. (If you missed this in chapter 20 yesterday, do yourself a favor and go back & read yesterday’s post, this is one of the most beautiful speeches in God’s Word!) Paul’s journey from Miletus to Jerusalem takes Him into the home of many believers where he will lodge with them, in fact I count 4 different homes Paul stays in in the first 16 verses of chapter 21. This brings up a personal parallel I’d like to mention.
When Marge & I had just gotten back to the US mainland from Maui, we headed down to serve a sister church in Destin Florida for 6 weeks. Our dear friend and his wife were dealing with cancer and we were able to help plug some holes while they were dealing with this. While there we stayed with 4 different families over the 6 weeks. This was a first for us. For 6 weeks we stayed in other’s homes and depended upon the kindness and love of those we hardly knew to open their homes and their lives to us. This was and continues to be one of the most profound experiences of the last several years spent serving. There is a humbleness and simplicity to depending on others that will help you to really relate to and see how God will provide for those who serve him. Because of this experience I can better relate to Paul and the disciples as they travel the regions relying on the kindness of fellow brothers and sisters for their kindness. It’s a beautiful thing to experience, I hope you all have the opportunity to experience something like it in your service to God. (By the way, if you have a desire to ‘go’ and serve God, simply start praying every day, “Here I am God send me” and then stand back, watch God work and get ready to pack your bags!)
As Paul journeys to Jerusalem he encounters many of the brethren that warn him of what he is to encounter. God has made it clear to Paul that trouble, persecution and maybe even death await him, but he is firm in His faith and will follow God to his death if God calls for it. Even as fellow believers warn him not to go he replies, “what are you doing weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name for the Lord Jesus.” (Acts 21:13) Even prophets are giving him vivid warnings and trying to persuade him not to go. Listen to Acts 21:10-11, “While we were staying for many days a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. And coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, thus says the Holy Spirit, this is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.”
So Paul has been more than adequately warned, why go? That’s a great question. I think it’s a question we all have had at moments in our lives. We feel a voice that says don’t go and we go. Or on the flip side we hear a voice that says go and we don’t go. It’s all about obedience. I wrote a few days ago about availability and obedience and how they go together in the service of God. When you have walked with God enough to “feel” his hand upon you, you will learn one truth, the pain that might await you as you follow Him does not equal the pain of being out of His will for your life. Let me say that again a different way. There might be pain and persecution directly in the path God has you on. You might even see it and God has let you know it’s there. But the pain of leaving God’s path, removing yourself from His will to avoid the obstacles will be so much greater than just staying the course He has for you. Paul knows this, stay the course, walk the path God has for you. He will provide the strength for you to endure.
Paul ends up in Jerusalem and has a beautiful reunion with the apostles and tells them of all God has done in building those glorious churches in Corinth, Philippi, Ephesus and in the ‘ends of the Earth.’ The brothers rejoice and glorified God for His goodness. (Acts 21:20) But the joyful camaraderie didn’t last long, within a week Paul is arrested, and in a most familiar way to him, and to us in God’s Word…an angry mob. Acts 21:27, “When the seven days were almost complete, the Jews from Asia, seeing him (Paul) in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him.” We see a crowd of people here, all riled up just like in the silversmith’s riot back in Acts 19. It goes on further to describe the mob in Acts 21:30 “Then all the city was stirred up and the people ran together.” Also in Acts 21:34, “Some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another, and he (lead guard) could not learn the facts because of the uproar.” You really should go back and read the account of the mob in Acts 19:28-33, the way the crowd acts is identical. Mis-guided anger fuels action, action with no plan creates confusion, confusion creates chaos and chaos breeds violence. This is the same formula that sent Jesus to the cross.
The Roman guards literally have to carry Paul to the jail to keep him alive. As they enter the jail Paul can finally be heard over the noise and he speaks to the guard in Greek, which the guard is not expecting. He asks to be able to speak to the crowd and the guard agrees out of respect for Paul’s knowledge of Greek. Paul turns to the angry crowd and motions to them with his hand and as silence ensues he addresses them in perfect Hebrew, the language they love and understand and he says……that’s where the chapter ends! Oh man talk about a cliffhanger! Tune in again tomorrow and we’ll see what Paul has to say to this angry, unruly mob that simply wants to kill him.
I pray that your day starts with a wonderful time of worshipping God this morning at a local church, wherever that may be. Our God so deserves to be worshipped.
Share the love today my beloved!
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