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.
25 “Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. 26 Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you. 27 For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.
Acts 20:22-27
These words that Paul spoke to the Ephesians as he was leaving convict me so much because I know that I don't live this way at all. Paul declares to them that he has no regrets and that he is innocent of their blood because he has spoken to them boldly of the will of God. This is a guy that is crazy about God. A man that was willing to give up his whole life for Him, to leave everything behind, including his sin, so that he can take the Gospel to the ends of the earth because thats what God asked of him! Thats incredible to me that he heard God's calling and was so obedient and bold.
When I look at how Paul preached with such an urgency, it makes hell so real to me. You can tell that he just wanted people to believe. He wanted them to know the truth and to be satisfied. He preached with such a boldness and confidence because he believed what he was saying. But then I think about myself and I'm forced to think, do I really fear hell the way Paul did? If I did, the Gospel would be shared a lot more, not out of obligation but out of need!
In verses 25-27, it makes me think of all of the conversations I have with people on campus and all of the times I ignore the Holy Spirit's guidance. I know that the majority of these people I'll never see again, but I refuse to even bring up the topic of God out of fear and I hate to say it but shame. What will this person think of me? How will they react? Will they judge me? My lack of trust in God's sovereignty in my conversations is disgusting to Him and proves how I place my trust in myself and not in Him. I fear losing my reputation and being rejected by others but in turn, it results in disapproval from the only one that matters. I fear this rejection but did it ever occur to me that the very word rejected pretty much summed up Jesus' life spent on earth.
"He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with
grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we
esteemed him not."
Isaiah 53:3
If we are going to take the path Jesus took, we need to be reminded of what Jesus endured while he traveled it. We oftentimes get sucked into this trap that the world sets that makes us think that different is bad, but he didn't come to be accepted and neither did we. We are here to speak boldly, correct gently, and live courageously.
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