We as the Church have a role to play in what God is doing right now, and that is to rise up and stand strong by praying for our pastors and leaders, and to lift up the arms of people around us so we can all stand together and represent Jesus to a world ready to receive him. We don’t want to miss the boat or miss our moment. Our job is to be awake, be aware, and to recognize that now is the time – it’s not the time for us to be asleep.
In Acts chapter 17, Paul is in the middle of his second missionary journey, going from town to town, preaching the Gospel of Jesus – bringing Truth to people – and God keeps showing up and turning things upside-down everywhere he goes. Paul was a man who could have been doing other things – any other things. Fresh from being beaten and imprisoned in Philippi, he makes the hundred-mile journey to Thessalonica. But something compels Him to endure hardship because of the potency of the reality of Jesus, who turned his world upside down, and of the urgency of giving others the opportunity to know him as well.
The effect that Jesus had on Paul’s life was so deep to the core of his heart that he couldn’t help but continue to go and speak the truth, no matter what hardship he faced. Nothing could shut him up. God wants to have that same profound impact on our lives. Paul wasn’t unique in how he responded to hardship because it was all by God’s grace.
2 Corinthians 11:24-28 NKJV
“From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness – besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.”
“Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more…” (Romans 5:20 NKJV). Facing godly trouble in our lives activates the grace of God like we’ve never experienced before. Paul wasn’t some Navy Seal who was trained to have no feelings, he was just an old Pharisee. The only reason he was able to endure the hardships and keep going and going was that he had tapped into the power of God and the grace of God, so that no matter what level of trouble came against him, he had more grace to meet it.
Paul didn’t lose heart, but kept showing up with fervor, energy, and passion in city after city after every hardship. God wants to bring us to that place where we have to reckon with him in such a way that we can’t play the middle ground, ride the fence, or be lukewarm. He’s calling us to passionately follow him into the trouble, knowing that the grace is greater than the trouble we’ll face.
Philippians 1:21 NKJV
“For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
Paul said there was only one thing on the planet that made him feel alive, and that was Jesus Christ – his vibrant relationship with Jesus changed everything else in his life. He lived by the grace of God, and no devil or hardship could stop him because the powerful grace of God was alive in him, and if he were killed, he would immediately be with Jesus, which made him bold and fearless.
We have no reason to be timid or to back off because we have something people need – even if they don’t know it. Paul would never sneak up on people with the Gospel, but he would show up in the synagogues, boldly preach Jesus, demonstrate God’s power, and then let the chips fall where they may – every time. He never changed the play. He didn’t change God’s winning plan to run his own play. He walked with God and let God provide for any consequences of his plan.
Three responses to the same message – A Truth encounter – a moment when we realize Jesus is showing us who he is, and now we must decide what to do in response:
1] We can be an ostrich-head in the sand, rear exposed. When the enemy sees us like this, he gets ready to kick a field goal.
2] We can be an ostracizer – someone who, when confronted with Truth and the reality of who God is and what he requires, gets angry about it and fights against it.
3] We can be an obtainer – somebody who says, “I will face the Truth. I will face God – and whatever’s true, that’s what I want. Whatever He’s got for me, I want to know, because I’m not afraid, and I want to know what’s real. God’s given me a chance, and I’m going to take it!”
Acts 17:1-4 NKJV
“Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, ‘This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.’ And some of them were persuaded; and a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and Silas.”
Paul was not just explaining, he was demonstrating that Jesus was the Christ. Some of the Jews, like modern-day Christians, were “persuaded,” but the Gentiles were all-in because they wanted to know the truth. That’s why they were there in the first place, and if we can be talked into something, the devil can talk us right back out of it. But God’s not trying to talk us into something, he’s trying to revolutionize our heart and our life from the inside out.
Unless that happens, we don’t know God. God never leaves us as we are; he changes us to become like he is. God is so good and so faithful that he will bring us to a place over and over again where something is stirring in our heart, and we think, “Oh, my gosh, I think this might be true, and I’ve got to decide what I’m going to do with it.” If we believe what Jesus said – that he is The Way, The Truth, and The Life – then there is no other option.
Either we repent and let him cleanse us, or we face judgment and hell on our own without him. If we believe that, it changes everything. It will jackhammer and hand-grenade our life in the best possible way. There is no way to be an ostrich about Jesus! We, like the Jews, can be raised in and around – even inoculated to Truth – they had just enough Truth to think they knew it all, yet remained unchanged at heart. When the full story showed up, they didn’t have ears to hear it.
Acts 17:5,6 NKJV
“But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, ‘These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.’ ”
The truth demanded something of their life that they weren’t willing to give. Because they weren’t willing to face Truth and change, they decided to get angry and kill it instead. Many of us have done the very same thing by refusing to face the truth and to allow the sin in our hearts to be exposed, trusting God to remove it. The hardest thing we’ve ever had to do is to get honest with God – to be willing to look at him and let him shine his light that exposes the reality of who we are and to begin to transform us, because we’re powerless to do it on our own.
Acts 17:10-12 NKJV
“Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men.”
They were showing up at the church hungry. They wanted to know God and what God wanted from them. They were ready to receive, and their hearts were open to God. They wanted their own relationship with God and were willing to search the Scriptures to prove what was Truth. Because of that, many of them believed in their heart, and God’s transforming, grace-filled process got activated in their life – and they were changed – not because Paul’s message had changed, but because their readiness and their response to it were different.
The Bereans were obtainers – they obtained from the Lord what he wanted to give them, because they were ready and willing to do the work. Many of us need to get back in the Book. Anytime people read the Bible four times or more every week, massive changes take place in their lives that produce fruit, compared with those who don’t. It’s like if we get in the Living Word, we meet the Living God, and we won’t feel stuck and stagnant anymore. Bad behavior will decrease, and godly behavior will increase, because the Word is living and active.
It’s like a double-edged sword that cuts us to our core by exposing who we really are, and by forcing us to face God, which allows his grace and power to hit our lives, and that produces change. When the Word instead of the world becomes the majority of our week, our lives will change because God is who he says he is. What we all need is an encounter with Truth and reality, where we stop being an ostrich – we stop being ostracized – and we want to obtain what he has for us just like the Bereans did.
Matthew 5:6 AMP
“Blessed [joyful, nourished by God’s goodness] are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [those who actively seek right standing with God], for they will be [completely] satisfied.”
That’s God’s promise to us – if we come to him hungry and willing to face the Truth, then he will fill us and completely satisfy us.
Hebrews 11:6 says, “Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” The onus is on us to seek out God, not for him to prove Himself to us. Every one of us has a face-to-face appointment with God coming. The question is, do we want that appointment now and to enter into his plan for us, or do we want to have the meeting later when it’s too late to change?
We’ve got a meeting coming, but the cool thing is, God’s invited us to a pre–meeting, so we can get ready for that final meeting by letting Jesus clothe us in his righteousness so we can stand before God on Judgement Day, where God doesn’t see us, our past, or our sin – but he sees the righteousness of Jesus – covering us as Jesus vouches for us to the Father, and says to welcome us in as a son or daughter. That’s the plan.
What’s encouraging is to see brilliant people in culture who were formerly atheist or agnostic coming to Christ with intensity. They also share a common characteristic – they had a desire and a diligence to know the Truth and were willing to respond to it. They all were seeking Truth and ended up in the same place. An honest pursuit of Truth leads to only one end.
To anyone who has an honest heart and who is willing to seek the Lord, God says, “I will show you Who I Am.”
God’s not trying to hide from us – he’s just not going to play games with us. He’s offering us the Truth, but it will mean certain things. It will mean change – nothing will ever be the same for us. We’ll have to let go of some things and let God work some things out of us. We’ll have to change our perspective on everything and rearrange our priorities – what we do with our time, our money, our treasure, our talents, our family, how we lead, how we speak to people – it all has to change.
But it won’t be by our own effort. It will only change by the power and the grace of God – by the same grace that brought Paul through all those hardships and troubles. There’s nothing like it – once we taste it, it’s over – it’s all we’ll want for the rest of our lives. “To live is Christ – to die is gain.”
Here’s the key question – but it’s not “What do I think? How does it make me feel? What do I think of the messenger or the preacher” or “What will it cost me?” But rather, “What is True? What’s the truth?” Many of us in our hearts don’t want to know or are afraid of Truth and its implications. Scripture tells us Truth isn’t a concept or an idea – Truth is a Person, and His name is Jesus. We live in a culture right now where the concept of Truth, itself, is fractured and broken.
We’ve deceived ourselves into thinking that we can all have our own version of Truth, when in fact, we’re all just believing lies because Truth doesn’t change. It doesn’t accommodate our whims or emotions, feelings, or desires – it doesn’t accommodate our lifestyle. Truth is the same – yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus is the same. We just have to decide whether we’re willing to face Truth or not. That’s it – that’s the message of our whole life – it’s the only message that we must respond to in this life that actually matters – the only one.
John 8:31,32 NKJV
“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Do we want to know the Truth? Many of us don’t want to know – we’re afraid – we’re angry – we’re bitter – we’re so stuck in the past and what’s happened to us that we’re blinded to the desire, even, to seek him, and to let him sort out and make sense of our lives. He’s the only One who can do it. We feel hopeless and helpless, and yet, we avoid the only One who can tell us the answer to that. We need to stop that. He’s here and he wants to meet us.
Faith isn’t blind – faith and Truth invite investigation. God says, “I want you to taste and see that I’m good.” (Psalm 34:8). “Taste” is a very up-close and personal experience. God says, “I want to bring you up to a front-row seat and experience so you can taste” – where it’s so real you can taste it, and see that God is who he says he is – that he is good and he’s for you. Taste and see! Don’t run and hide – don’t ostrich – don’t ostracize – obtain!
There’s a plague of willful ignorance happening in our culture right now, where many of us have an awareness that we could know the Truth – we recognize something’s stirring us – we feel God tugging on us. We could know the Truth, but some of us are saying in our hearts that we really don’t want to know – we’re afraid – and then if we know, that we’ll be responsible for it and we’ll have to do something with it.
So, we plug our ears and hope for the best, and find our little comfortable spot in the sand, where we’ve made that divot with our head. But, Jesus said in the Book of Revelations seven times to seven different churches, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Or, “Whoever wants to know, I’ll show them-whoever’s willing to face Me, I’ll reveal Myself. I’ll remove all doubt in their mind that I Am who I say I am.”
If we don’t know God, it’s not because he’s not available to us; it’s because we haven’t decided we want to know him yet. “Whoever seeks – finds.” That’s what Scripture tells us. “He’s a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.” The hardest person to be honest with is ourselves, where we rightly recognize what our heart is doing on the inside. The Bible says that without the influence of God, our hearts are desperately wicked and opposed to him.
It’s only by his grace that we turn to him and say, “All right – I’m going to stop ostriching and ostracizing. I’m going to look at and face the light and let it shine on me and reveal the ugly things that I’m scared of – but I trust that he will heal me because he promised he would.” There is literally nothing good for us in this life outside of God’s will and his ways, outside of a relationship with him. Everything good that we will experience that lasts begins and ends with him. The sooner we link up with him, the sooner we’ll experience the overflow of his goodness and grace pouring out of our lives. He wants it for us so much.
Acts 17:24,25 NKJV
“God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.”
God doesn’t need anything from us, but he wants us, which is so much greater. He wants to know us, and he wants us to know him because he loves us.
Acts 17:26 NKJV
“And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings…”
God perfectly designed and orchestrated the circumstances and details of our life to bring us into opportunities to have a Truth-encounter with him so that we might reach out and find him, because he is not far from any one of us. How far is he? He’s right here. He couldn’t be any nearer to us. The distance we feel from God is not proximity, it’s the posture of our heart. It’s the willingness to face him, to face the Truth, and to let him in.
Acts 17:27-33 NKJV
“…so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being… Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead…And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, ‘We will hear you again on this matter.’ So Paul departed from among them.”
Three hard postures and three hard responses …it’s our choice what we do with that.
Prayer
Father, in Jesus’ name, shine on each one of us as we turn to You, diligently seeking after You right now. Do what You promised to do and reveal Jesus – reveal Truth – reveal the Gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit. Begin to work a supernatural transformation in our hearts. Make us like Paul – impervious to trouble and trial. Strengthen us by Your grace. Change us from the inside out. We desire to know You more. Pour out Your goodness on us right now. We ask for it by faith and we thank You for it, in Jesus’ name! Amen
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on The Bridge
Featured Image by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash
