Acts 18:22-20:38

Acts 18-20 outlines some of the amazing events that were happening as the Lord began moving through people in the early church.  These 2 chapters primarily focus on how the Holy Spirit was leading and empowering him to proclaim the Gospel all over Asia Minor.  We see at the end of 18 that Apollos was proclaiming the word truthfully and boldly in Ephesus, shortly thereafter we see Paul going to the very same place and teaching and baptizing people in large crowds.  Later we see Paul doing more extraordinary things in the lives of the sons of a Jewish high priest.  He cast out demon, heals the sick, and even leads their family into repentance.  We even see riots and chaos ensue over the work that is happening  through Paul.  If that is not enough, Paul is then led again to Macedonia and Greece, then the Lord uses him to raise a man from dead.  All of these things that are amazing, extraordinary, and impossible.  It is not Paul doing these works at all.  It is the work of God through the Holy Spirit doing these great things.  I do not know about you, but all of these seems to be enough.  What else could Paul do?  Wouldn't you think that Paul could break off from this pattern and take some time in comfort?  Look at the works and the things that occurred.  It seems to me that I would settle with this and be finished.  Look at the resume, and I'm good.  God is pleased.  I do not want to go in depth on the individual events that occurred in Paul's journey, but rather what the Holy Spirit led Paul to do.  The biggest thing I would like to highlight is Paul's response to this calling.

Paul explains in the last part of Acts 20 about his calling to go to Jerusalem from the Holy Spirit.  In a letter to the Ephesian elders, he stated what he was a about to do.  In order to give some perspective on what he was about to endure, I want to fill you in on some of the things that were happening in Judea.  We see a reference in 1 Peter 1 who is reaching out to all believers who are in different cities who were effected by what is referred to something called the "dispersion".  The "dispersion" is referring to the massive uprooting of Judea-Christians that was happening not long after the resurrection of Jesus.  The primary city in the region of Judea was Jerusalem.  If you were a Christian in Judea at this time, it was not good for you health.  As a matter of fact, the job that Paul used to do for the Pharisee's was to hunt down those Christians and arrest them, persecute them, and even cause them to be murdered.  People were being pushed out of their families, losing their livelihood, and even their lives for following Christ in Judea.  So when Paul receives this calling from the Holy Spirit to go to back to this region, he states the following things: "And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God."

With all of these truths before us in the scriptures, are we living like this.  Is the Lord calling us to go to places, empowering us with his Holy Spirit to do something?  We are not at risk of losing our lives, but what if we were?  Would we have the boldness of Paul to say, "...I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself."  We do not know the future, but this calling may be set before us.  My prayer is that Red Door would respond with such humility, obedience, and boldness for the glory of God.