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Week 1 August 2024, Devotion Part 1

When we heard this, we and the people there begged him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart?”  Acts 21:12-13


Paul had his face set like flint toward Jerusalem and his unfolding martyrdom. The outpouring of sympathy at Caesarea, a mere fifty miles away, must have rained like hammer blows on his brave heart. In exhorting his friends to honor God’s sovereign plans, he was forced to relive the wrenching emotions of his one-way commitment. In countering their resistance, he had to fight doubly against the rising fear in his own frail flesh. The tearful “Don’t go!” was a dubious, cowardly gift to the Apostle who needed to be fueled with faith in step with his own.


We cannot fault his friends for using the Holy Spirit’s testimony of suffering as a brake instead of a boost. “Fools for Christ” need occasional protection from themselves. Beware of the person who maps out his own martyrdom with an air of nonchalance. Grandstanding and taking up Christ’s cross are mutually exclusive. Actually, in trying to save someone else’s skin, we might be seeking safeguards for our own. No matter what, Paul’s distressing farewell at Caesarea clarifies truth that protects the Holy Spirit’s interests above all. Luke, “the beloved physician” who wrote the account as an eyewitness and participant, in hindsight might well suggest the following “prescription” to us:  (Part 1 of 2)


Comment:  I highly recommend a thoughtful reading also of chapters 19 and 20 of Acts. They chronicle Paul’s incredible trek from Ephesus to Caesarea. “Constrained by the Spirit” to conclude it in Jerusalem, he tirelessly testified to the power of the Gospel and poured out God’s grace on all who came to hear him and say their sad good-byes.  I thought I  knew the apostle well from all his doctrinal and personal writings. After mentally and emotionally making the journey toward his certain martyrdom with Paul, I realized  how much I had underestimated both his humanity and resolute faith.  Oddly, suddenly out of the blue, I recalled a saying by Evangelicals starting in the 1950s, “I find Peale appalling, and Paul appealing.”  Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) burst on the public scene with his 1952 bestseller, The Power of Positive Thinking.  He achieved rock-star status after he coined the maxim, “Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” The astronomer Edwin Hubble might have wanted to shoot down that notion, but died in 1953.  Eventually, so did the power of positive thinking that had morphed into the craze of self-help literature and the ubiquitous Smiley Face.  In reality it seems, pervasive negativity is today’s cultural norm, so “wishing upon a star” apparently didn’t work in the long run.  The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation.  The stunningly beautiful images reveal the creative genius of our loving Creator, whose Son came to our planet to lie in a manger and die on a cross.  Two thousand years later the Apostle Paul’s message to  the church rings as true as when he wrote it to the  Corinthians, “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”

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