PENnED

Read: Acts 20:22-32

²² “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. ²³ I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. ²⁴ However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.

I’ve been away from home since last Friday night. I am with my family and friends visiting with other friends in Southern California. Last Sunday morning we watched a popular preacher’s TV show. He spoke about reaching “your promised land” (success, prosperity, or similar) that might require our willingness to embrace change, or something to that effect. Using Israel’s story in the wilderness, he said that sometimes all we need to do might be just some “tweaking” to change things, and that might involve getting rid of some temporary “scaffolding” (like people) that do not help us become successful. So in an indirect way, he taught people to use other people for their personal benefit.

But those of us who are familiar with the story know that Israel, God’s people, needed more than a little tweaking here and there–they needed to repent, stop complaining and obey God! If the preacher did not use a Scripture passage, I was fine with his inspirational (not biblical) message. But when one uses Scripture as a diving board, it disturbs me.

In this passage in Acts 20, we see a different picture of a believer in the Apostle Paul. His ultimate goal in life is not personal success but “to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” Don’t get me wrong, I am not against anybody pursuing success in, say, business. I am involved in one myself. But we are not to forget that God has called us to fulfill a higher calling and that people are not to be used by us to fulfill our selfish ambitions. As followers of Christ, we should be willing to make sacrifices for the sake of others as we proclaim the gospel, “the good news of God’s grace” in Christ who died so that through faith in him they, too, may have eternal life.

Jesus “died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”*   

*2 Corinthians 5:15