ACTS of the Apostles, part 2

Wednesday, October 12

ACTS of the Apostles, Part 2

Learning How to be Daring and Dynamic

Read Acts 28:17-22

Focus Verse: Acts 28:20

For this reason, I have asked to see you and talk with you. It is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.

We are about to finish the book of Acts and Paul is still in chains. What? Where is the grand climax of the long awaited great escape? Well, it's not in this passage. And as you all may already know, even in these verses, he may have been close to his execution.

But Paul was finally in Rome, and that WAS his goal. God had told him he was going to preach the gospel in this great city, and sure enough, through trials and beatings and storms and shipwrecks and snakebites and more, he had arrived. (Don't you know Satan was throwing a temper tantrum at this point?!) God's sovereign plans CANNOT be stopped!

While in chains, Paul gathers together certain leaders of the Jews and tells them that he "had done nothing against the (Jewish people) or against the customs of their ancestors" (v. 17). In other words, he was innocent! I'm sure he wished he were free, but more than that his hope was that all the people listening to him would accept the truth of the words he was speaking.

He longed for THEIR spiritual freedom over his own physical freedom.

This is a good reminder to each of us today: if we belong to Christ, no matter how hard life gets, we are FREE. We can all agree, life can get REALLY hard. This is when we must remind ourselves that our freedom is not a feel-good-all-the-time-kind of freedom; but it is a rock solid security in a Savior who knows about REALLY HARD because he did it himself, all the way to the cross. But this Jesus conquered death! And he now lives in you by his Spirit to help you in your really hard circumstances. What a gift! And not only that, he has eternity waiting for you when this life is done. That's the freedom Paul lived by while bound in chains. What he really understood was that there is nothing more devastating than being bound by unbelief. Therefore, he spent his hours and his energy "being poured our like a drink offering" for the sake of others to know the truth of Jesus. (2 Tim. 4:6)

Today let's rejoice in the present and eternal hope we have in Christ. Our story, like Paul's can be a testimony that points to the freedom we have in Jesus, even when, or especially when, our life seems to be chained with "really hard."

Dear Lord God,

Help us today to remember the GOOD NEWS. Remind us that you are with us always and that you walk with us through the both the "flowing" days as well as the really difficult ones. Continue to speak to us through your word and your Spirit so that we can keep pressing on, bearing your light. Use us, the way you did Paul, to progress the gospel through our story. Amen.