Full Speed to the Finish Line

Ran into a verse in Acts this morning I don’t ever remember reading before.

Paul is on his way to Jerusalem. In fact, Acts 20:22 tells us the he is “bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem.”

But, in a strange prophetic twist to the plot, it is the same Holy Spirit who warns him along his route that “jail and suffering lie ahead” (Acts 22:23).

Now, it would seem natural to all of us therefore that Paul should do everything in his power to avoid Jerusalem. After all, he has been warned, in detail, about what awaits him…with even more graphic pronouncements and prophetic acts yet to come in his journey.

But, Paul remains undeterred, even in the face of prophetic warnings.

Two reasons…

1. Paul is convinced that the Holy Spirit is leading him to go to Jerusalem at that moment.

It is so important, when it comes to receiving direction from the Lord, that we are convinced of what we have heard…so convinced that apparently conflicting prophetic words cannot derail us from the will of God.

On a side note, I believe there was no contradiction between the Holy Spirit’s leading of Paul to go to Jerusalem and the warnings of what lay ahead of him there. I believe the warnings were given to reassure the churches when Paul was arrested that God was working, even in his arrest and two year imprisonment.

The prophets along the way, including Agabus, had the right word from the Lord but simply applied the wrong conclusion…namely that Paul should not go to Jerusalem.

2. Paul allows nothing, not even the specter of arrest and imprisonment, to detour him from his calling.

In an amazing verse, in Acts 20, he says, “…my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus.”

I am humbled and convicted this morning by Paul’s determined focus.

He clearly knows his divine assignment.

Do you?

I believe it is God’s intention that each one of us know our assignment from Him. Without that we are just floaters in life. Paul was anything but a floater.

And Paul is not about to let anything, not even the threat of arrest and imprisonment, distract him from his determination to finish the assignment.

In fact, Paul’s sense of calling is so deep in him that the rest of his life seems worthless to him if he is not in pursuit of his calling.

I pray the Lord give you both!

Both the clarity of assignment and the determination to not quit, not slow down, not get distracted until that assignment is completed.