Arrested!

Read Acts 21:27-36
I think one of the hardest parts of the Christian life for me to understand is persecution. Sure, I hear stories about the church around the world and about men and women giving their lives for Jesus, but I have a difficult time grasping what that means for me. Is persecution even a relevant part of my life? When I read our passage for today, about Paul being arrested, its so easy for me to think, “Well, I’ve never been arrested for Jesus, so how do I apply this?” But the more I think about it, the more I come to see that I view what happened to Paul from the wrong angle.

I think one of the reasons we struggle with the idea of persecution is because we focus on the suffering. We say, “I don’t get persecution, because I don’t suffer the way the early church or the church around the world does.” But I think what we miss is that Paul’s suffering was not for the sake of suffering. Paul was suffering because he was preaching Jesus. He was going into the temple and the synagogues and telling the world that Jesus was the Messiah! Persecution and suffering is not something that we can control. Preaching the gospel is. The question we should ask isn’t “why am I not being persecuted” but rather, “why am I not telling other’s about Jesus?” Paul’s life was so wrapped up in this idea. Not that he was living a life of persecution, but that his task and his goal was to preach the Gospel. In Acts 20:24 Paul says, “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.”

Read 2 Corinthians 11:23-28
Paul understood this. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-28, Paul sarcastically details the persecution he has went through when people in the church in Corinth began to elevate persecution above the proclamation of the Gospel. Paul went through beatings, stonings, floggings, imprisonment, all because God had called him to the task of preaching the gospel. So what then for us? Maybe here in the U.S. we don’t experience persecution the way the church in China might experience it. That’s out of our control. The question we need to ask ourselves is, “Am I preaching the good news?”


Prayer Calendar
Sunday: Pray for the Global community
At the end of our “Open Doors” Mission Conference. Pray that we can be a light to the world around us.

Monday: Pray for your relationship with God
Pray that your will would be aligned with Gods throughout this week