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Acts 21:10-14
After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’” When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.”
New International Version (NIV)
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Hollywood sometimes dives into theology. I have mentioned to you before the movie called The Adjustment Bureau. In the movie, God and his angels, who all wear fedoras (?!) are trying to keep a politician away from the woman he loves because if he marries her he won’t become president. We and the Guajardos love the movie Frequency in which a man talks to his father twenty years before and saves his life from a fire. Every time he changes history, new memories are formed which had not happened before. Confusing? I know. Both movies fascinate me because they deal with the question of God’s will. On this matter, I find that there is a good bit of divergence among God’s people. Some lean toward God’s sovereignty almost to the point of determinism: whatever God has already decided will always inevitably take place. Others contend that God has given us free will to take actions which have real consequences. I do not assume I can resolve this debate in a single devotional.
What if Paul had not gone to Jerusalem? Remember, he had a plan to take an offering to the Jewish Christian church there from the Gentile believers in Macedonia and Achaia. He asked the Romans to pray for a safe trip (Romans 15:30-31). As we return to Acts, we discover everyone is telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem because the Holy Spirit has revealed to them that he will be bound and imprisoned there. They assumed that God did not want Paul to suffer so, they pleaded with him not to go. But Paul is willing to suffer for the sake of the gospel. Finally they give up and say, “The Lord’s will be done.” Was it? Ultimately Paul was killed by the emperor of Rome. Was that God’s will?
One of my friends who grew up in Germany in the 1930’s and 1940’s says Dietrich Bonhoeffer should have stayed in the United States during the time of Hitler and World War II. Remember Bonhoeffer came to New York and studied before the war. Karl Barth told him to return to Germany to be part of the post-Nazi solution. But the Nazis captured him and killed him. What if Bonhoeffer had just stayed in New York? He could have written a lot more theology and died of old age. Would he be as famous today if he had done so? Would the church in Germany be stronger today? We just don’t know.
The Bible holds in tension the sovereignty of God and human free will. Truly God works all things together for our good if we love him and are called according to his purpose. Still, our decisions have consequences. Once I was jogging in the rain with my brother in North Texas when a lightning storm came through. I suggested we get indoors. He said, “I’ve always thought God will take care of me . . . let’s keep running.” I replied, “I’ve always thought God expected us to use our brains . . . let’s go inside.”
Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment.” This means that each of us is going to die once – in other words death is ultimately unavoidable. What it doesn’t say is, “There is exactly one moment when a person will die. Nothing he does will have any affect on it.” We know that there are behaviors which can shorten our lives. There are crimes we can commit which shorten other people’s lives. When a drunk driver ran over our nephew and killed him in his early twenties, was it just my nephew’s time? Or was the driver not supposed to be drunkenly going the wrong way on I-45? If you get on a plane saying, “I won’t die before my time,” what if it is the pilot’s time? Is it therefore everyone else’s time? Pardon the humor. This determinism does not comport with the Biblical teaching of free will. God’s heart is often broken by the choices we make.
My friends Jim Denison and Todd Still, both say, “God redeems all he allows.” He allows us free will, and he redeems us in spite of and even through our suffering. Someday we will all stand before God. Our only hope is that we have trusted in Christ. But every day we are here we make decisions which have temporal and eternal consequences. We should be kind to all people, as our heavenly Father is (Matthew 5:45-48). God wants us to love each other and protect each other from harm, so we try not to spread disease. We cannot ultimately escape suffering in this life, but we can choose not to cause other people to suffer. God’s good, pleasing and perfect will is accessible to us as we present our bodies to God as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to him in worship each day. As C. T. Studd put it, “I have only one life. ‘Twill soon be past. Only what is done for Christ will last.”
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Pray with me:
Father, thank you for guiding us in your way today. We pray that we will stay in the very center of your will today. Help us not to cause pain to others. Redeem the pain in our own lives and work in us to make us more like Christ. We pray as you have taught us, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We ask for your will in our lives and our families today, nothing more, nothing less and nothing else. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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Join us in memorizing the Word. Scripture for this week:
Matthew 6:3-4
But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
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| Our 2020 Every Day with Jesus readings will follow the Foundations New Testament reading plan. Copies of the reading plan are available at Tallowood Baptist Church, or download your copy at REPLICATE.ORG
We would love for you to join us as we read the New Testament through this year, five chapters a week. In addition I will continue my long-standing practice of reading one Psalm a day through the year. Use Robby Gallaty’s H. E. A. R. plan to study each chapter (also found at REPLICATE.ORG). Highlight verses which speak to you, explain what they mean in your own words in a journal, apply them to your own life, then respond by doing what God tells you to do.
Joyfully,
Duane
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