The 260 Journey The 260 Journey

Day 116



Today’s Reading: Acts 27



Today, we'll take a boat ride on some rough waters in Acts 27. This boat has 276 on board, most of them prisoners. The apostle Paul is below deck in shackles and on his way to Rome. At one point the most famous prisoner on the boat tells the professional seafarers, “I wouldn’t go that direction.” And his advice is rejected vehemently:



Paul began to admonish them, and said to them, “Men, I perceive that the voyage will certainly be with damage and great loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.” But the centurion was more persuaded by the pilot and the captain of the ship than by what was being said by Paul. (Acts 27:9-11)



Paul warned that if they continued on the journey, they would experience damage and great loss. The other passengers were probably thinking, “What does a religious man know about sailing?”



They do not listen to the Christian and this is what happens:



Before very long there rushed down from the land a violent wind, called Euraquilo; and when the ship was caught in it and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and let ourselves be driven along. . . . The next day as we were being violently storm-tossed, they began to jettison the cargo; and on the third day they threw the ship’s tackle overboard with their own hands. Since neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small storm was assailing us, from then on all hope of our being saved was gradually abandoned. When they had gone a long time without food, then Paul stood up in their midst. (Acts 27:14-21)



At some point, some "Einstein" on the crew said, “Where is the guy who told us not to go on this journey? Maybe we should listen to him?”



They pull the prisoner up on deck. They wanted to hear from Paul; they had an awakening.



That story is an example of what at an awakening looks like in our country. It’s when people want to hear from God again—not the professionals: not the politicians, not the news reporters, not Hollywood celebrities, or athletes. It's when people declare, “Let’s hear what God has to say.”



The sailors are at that place of desperation when they want to hear from Paul. This is what he tells them:



Men, you ought to have followed my advice and not to have set sail from Crete and incurred this damage and loss. Yet now I urge you to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For this very night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood before me, saying, “Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar; and behold, God has granted you all those who are sailing with you.” Therefore, keep up your courage, men, for I believe God that it will turn out exactly as I have been told. But we must run aground on a certain island. (Acts 27:21-26)



When Paul says, “An angel of . . . God . . . stood before me,” that means God gave Paul a word for the ship. The captive is now the captain! The sailors listened to the one they had in the bowel of the ship. Wait until you hear Paul teach them how to survive! In verse 44, Paul tells them that when the ship breaks up, they are to grab hold of a plank and float to shore.



Holding on to a piece of wood is going to get you through your storm. I have a sneaky suspicion you may have caught where I’m going with this. The only chance for America and the impending storm we will face is still a piece of wood—a two-thousand-year-old piece of wood on which the Son of God died—the cross.



There’s enough wood for everybody. Paul is speaking to his enemies. He is helping the sailors survive who made him a prisoner. All 276 make it to shore during a terrible storm. The storm allows the captive to become captain. Paul guides the ship and those on board to safety. How?



It is like two men who are on a beach gazing out at sea. One man says, “I see a ship.” The friend replies that he doesn’t see anythi

Day 115



Today’s Reading: Acts 26



In today’s reading, the apostle Paul is about to make his defense before king Agrippa before leaving for Rome. It is so powerful that at the end of his speech, the king says to Paul, “In a short time you will persuade me to become a Christian.”



What was so powerful about this speech Paul made? He told his conversion experience (this is the third time he tells it in Acts). Always remember that something may be old to you, but it may be new for someone else. D. L. Moody, the great American evangelist in the nineteenth century, was never afraid to tell people about Jesus wherever he was. He had a reputation for it. One day Moody intercepted a man who was hurrying toward a train and asked the stranger, “Are you saved?” The man told him, “That is none of your business.” Moody replied, “That is just my business,” to which the stranger said, “Then you must be Moody.” He was an amazing storyteller who could make the gospel more understandable to his listeners. After one meeting in which he preached, a woman approached him and said, “Moody, I’ve heard those stories you told, they were repeats.” To which Moody replied, “The people need to hear those stories, and I must tell them.” And that is what Paul did before the king. He retold his story.



But this time we get something we have never heard before. It is as if Paul’s memory was jarred the more he told his conversion story:



While so engaged as I was journeying to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests, at midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining all around me and those who were journeying with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” (Acts 26:12-14)



Did you hear it? Every time he told his story, it always had Saul. “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” But this time he added the second part, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”



These are red-letter words, which means Jesus was talking. That is why we have to take note of the addition to Paul’s story. The risen Christ told Paul that it was hard for him to kick against the spikes or goads. When a young ox was first yoked, it tried to kick its way out of the yoke. If it was yoked to a onehanded plough, the ploughman held in his hand a long stick with a sharpened end, which he held close to the ox’s heels so that every time it kicked, it was caught by the spike. The sharp end would urge the ox in the right direction, but if it wanted to do its own thing, the small pain of being guided was traded for the big pain of being stabbed in the heel for not listening. It was the pain of disobedience.



It seems that Paul was making an important point. He was saying that God was pricking his conscience, and every time he refused and fought against it, it just got harder for him. Many believe that when Paul witnessed Stephen’s stoning in Acts 8, that act started the pricking of his conscience. He saw Stephen’s face look like an angel. He saw Stephen forgive the men who were stoning him. He saw Stephen commit himself into the arms of Jesus. To see all this and not turn to Jesus was nothing but kicking against the goads.



When God is trying to get our attention and we keep on going our own way, we join the goad-kicking club. The pain of disobedience is way more costly than the pain of obeying. Every time God asks us to draw closer to Him in obedience, it is our chance either to say yes and all Him to guide us to our destination or to say no and have Jesus discipline us to our intended destination.



This is really important. With God, He is going to get you to your intended destination. So you can do it the easy way or the hard way.



What was Paul’s destination? “I am sending you to them to open their eyes and t

Day 114



Today’s Reading: Acts 25



There are two ways to view yourself—from a photo or in a mirror. Photos are how we wished we looked. Mirrors are how we really look. One is fantasy, the other reality. We can fix our hair and our make-up for a photograph. But when we look into a mirror, that is the real us staring back. Until we see and acknowledge our real selves, we never understand our need for God. In other words, if our lives are constantly about over-inflating ourselves, we undervalue our need for a Savior.



In today’s reading, we find a very overrated moment. It’s men seeing their photo and not looking into the mirror.



Paul was on trial and about to go to Rome, but not without some overrated people showing up to see the “little man” who was changing the region with the message of Jesus. Look at this one verse in particular. The contrast of people is amazing: “On the next day when Agrippa came together with Bernice amid great pomp, and entered the auditorium accompanied by the commanders and the prominent men of the city, at the command of Festus, Paul was brought in” (Acts 25:23).



In this scene, we have the king of Judea, Agrippa, his wife, Bernice, and Festus, the procurator of Judea. There were the commanders and the prominent men of the city all in this one verse. But there was one other person there also.



In the midst of all this pomp, there was also one man in chains who was changing the world—the apostle Paul. All of those other people looked at their photos and decided how great they were. Paul looked into a mirror and realized what a great sinner he was. And the latter man changed a planet.



It says they came “amid great pomp.” An interesting tidbit: Pomp is the Greek word phantasia, from which we get fantasy. The photo was fantasy.



In the Daily Study Bible, William Barclay described the fantasy like this:



There is no more dramatic scene in all the New Testament. It was with splendour that Agrippa and Bernice had come. They would have worn their purple robes of royalty and the gold circlet of the crown on their brows. Doubtless Festus had donned the scarlet robe which a governor wore on state occasions. Close at hand there must have stood Agrippa’s court, and also in attendance were the most influential figures of the Jews. Close by Festus there would stand the captains in command of the five cohorts which were stationed at Caesarea; and in the background there would be a solid formation of the tall Roman legionaries on ceremonial guard. Into such a scene came Paul, the little Jewish tent-maker, with his hands in chains; and yet, from the moment he speaks, it is Paul who holds the stage.



Think of the contrast of having a tentmaker in chains and a king in purple, and people forgetting that the man in chains was really the man in authority in that room.



This story made me think about Mother Teresa’s speech at the Washington, D.C. prayer breakfast on February 3, 1994. Three thousand people attended the event, mostly DC officials. The president and first lady, Bill and Hillary Clinton, were there, along with the vice president and second lady, Al and Tipper Gore.



Mother Teresa stood to speak, and the room’s atmosphere became intensely uncomfortable when she started by saying, “I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because Jesus said, ‘If you receive a little child, you receive me.’ So every abortion is the denial of receiving Jesus, the neglect of receiving Jesus.”



Journalist Peggy Noonan recounted the scene:



Silence. Cool deep silence in the cool round cavern for just about 1.3 seconds. And then applause started on the right hand side of the room, and spread, and deepened, and now the room was swept with people applauding, and they would not stop for what I believe was for five or six minutes.



But not everyone applauded. The president and the first lady, seated within a few feet of Mother Teresa on the dais, we

Day 113



Today’s Reading: Acts 24



Recently I read a quote about being good stewards of our time and made me sit back and really think about what I do with the time God has given me:



Each new day brings us 24 hours, 1440 minutes, 86,400 seconds, each moment a precious gift from God . . . each calling for us to be good stewards, mindful that one day we must give an account for how we spent the time God loaned us, how effectively we “bought up” the opportunities He provided.



William Penn once said, “Time is what we want most, but what, alas! we use worst.”



Acts 24 is about a man who did not use time effectively. The man, Felix, was a king, and he heard a three-point sermon preached by one of the best, the apostle Paul. It was a sermon that made a king tell the preacher to stop:



Some days later Felix arrived with Drusilla, his wife who was a Jewess, and sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus. But as he was discussing righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix became frightened and said, “Go away for the present, and when I find time I will summon you.” At the same time too, he was hoping that money would be given him by Paul; therefore he also used to send for him quite often and converse with him. But after two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus. (Acts 24:24-27)



Listen to an old Methodist preacher, Halford Luccock, and what he makes of Felix’s mistake:



There is a unique characteristic about time which we overlook: We can lose time, but we can never find it. We have to make it. Felix found lots of moments for what he wanted to do—to satisfy his curiosity about Paul and open the way for a bribe. We read that he would send for him “pretty frequently” (Acts 24:26), but he found no moments to face the big issue squarely and render a judgment. Such moments are never found. They must be made.”



And what we conclude from the passage is that Felix never found time to deal with the most important issue of his life—eternity. Here is how it reads in The Message, and it’s raw:



As Paul continued to insist on right relations with God and his people, about a life of moral discipline and the coming Judgment, Felix felt things getting a little too close for comfort and dismissed him. “That’s enough for today. I’ll call you back when it’s convenient.” (Acts 24:25)



To say, “I don’t have time,” is like saying, “I don’t want to” or “I’m not interested.” I read something that is only too true: “Time is a strange commodity. You can’t save it, borrow it, loan it, leave it, or take it. You can only do two things with it—use it or lose it.”



Felix lost it.



A. W. Tozer said it like this: “When you kill time, remember that it has no resurrection.”



Felix heard a sermon that keyed in on righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come. And he got frightened. I know that feeling. It happened to me. I was twelve years old and picked up a comic book at a youth camp, called The Late Great Planet Earth. It was the kid version of the book by the same name by Hal Lindsey, that dealt with the end times and the judgment to come. I was struck with such conviction and fear that I was not ready for the rapture that I sought out my counselor to get things right with God.



What I learned was this, when you don’t do something about the conviction of the soul, the intensity does not get stronger. The opposite happens and it lessens. The more we ignore the voice of God toward obedience, the more difficult it is to act.



When God speaks, respond. When you feel convicted about something, do something. Felix got convicted and all he did for two years was listen to Paul but would not respond. It seems he never felt that way again, and by verse 27 he was out and another king came in.



Make use of time wisely, especially if it is dealing with your soul and eternity. As Mother Teresa allegedly said, “

Day 112



Today’s Reading: Acts 23



My father used to use a phrase when we were about to get spanked when we were kids—The bag is getting full. It meant that a bunch of things we did were adding up, and he couldn’t take anymore. Have you ever just got so full that you could not take anymore and you lose it? Words come flying out. Maybe even a profanity or two. Things are said that if somebody heard you, they wouldn’t know you’re a Christian.



In Slaying the Giants in Your Life, David Jeremiah writes on anger:



Road rage, parking rage, air rage, boat rage, surf rage, fishing rage, river rage, pedestrian rage, pavement rage, jogger rage, biker rage, trucker rage, cell phone rage, shopping rage, grocery cart rage, and checkout line rage. I’m told there’s such a thing as pew rage. . . . What makes anger so elusive and so incredibly dangerous is that it flares suddenly, powerfully, and irrationally. It takes no counsel of the future. It takes no consideration of personal safety.



This kind of stuff would seem like it would hit new converts. And it does. Can it hit mature Christians? It does. The bag can get full, and we lose it. Can it hit super Christians? Big time believers? How about Paul the apostle? Absolutely. We have a time in Acts when Paul lost it, Christian cursing. Read it for yourself:



Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, “Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day.” The high priest Ananias commanded those standing beside him to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Do you sit to try me according to the Law, and in violation of the Law order me to be struck?” But the bystanders said, “Do you revile God’s high priest?” And Paul said, “I was not aware, brethren, that he was high priest; for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’” (Acts 23:1-5)



It may not read as bad as it sounds. It was bad. Paul got slapped in the face for saying that his conscience was clear before God. It seemed to have a sense of sarcasm in it as he stood before the Council. And then after he was struck in the mouth, Paul lost it. He called Ananias a “whitewashed wall” and then stared him down, saying, “Do you sit to try me . . . and . . . order me to be struck?”



When you call someone a “whitewashed wall,” you are saying that person may dress well and look good on the outside but something stinks on the inside. Everyone in Paul’s presence knew what it meant. It was a common insult; a curse word to call someone, if that would make sense.



He was saying to them, “You stink!” Or, “This stinks!”



Let me tell you about Paul’s week before we get hard on him. It’s not to excuse him but to show you that we all can lose it when our bags get full. To explain better, let me use Charles Swindoll’s words from his Acts commentary:



Let me give you a little reminder of the kind of week that the apostle Paul has just had before entering into the situation of chapter 23 of Acts. So far this week he has been beaten by a mob (21:27-32), bound in chains (21:33), had his death demanded by a group of zealous Jews (22:1-22) and then came within a hairsbreadth of being scourged (22:23- 29). Now he wants to know for certain why he has been accused by the Jews. . . . Having little sleep, food, or physical care, he stands weary and bruised before the highest Jewish court, the Sanhedrin.



All that added up to this moment. The bag got full, and a flood came out of Paul. Controlling himself no longer, he suddenly poured out a scalding stream of contempt directed at his accusers and judges. In effect, Paul called the judge a stinking hypocrite. This was more flesh than spirit. Correction, it was all flesh and no spirit.



He realized his mistake when a bystander rebuked him. Paul had not been part of this council for some twenty years and would n

Day 111



Today’s Reading: Acts 22



The apostle Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus in Acts 9. That was AD 34. It was an amazing story of Paul encountering the resurrected Jesus. Our chapter today is Acts 22, and we find here, thirteen chapters later, that Paul is telling his story from chapter 9. This was in AD 59, twenty-five years after his conversion, he is still telling about his encounter with Jesus with a freshness and a conviction as though it had happened just the day before.



Paul’s story is not in a church after a powerful worship service. He is telling his story in Jerusalem to a hostile mob. Their hostility is in chapter 21, when they beat him and have him in chains. But Paul wants to speak, which is what we read in chapter 22. This is what Paul says to the hostiles:



“It happened that as I was on my way, approaching Damascus about noontime, a very bright light suddenly flashed from heaven all around me, and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ And I answered, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting.’ And those who were with me saw the light, to be sure, but did not understand the voice of the One who was speaking to me. And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Get up and go on into Damascus, and there you will be told of all that has been appointed for you to do.’ But since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me and came into Damascus.” (verses 6-11)



There’s an old saying, “A man who has an argument is always at the mercy of a man who has an experience.” Paul had an experience that he is willing to die for. It’s so important to him, in fact, that he tells that story three times in the book of Acts. The last time he tells it is in Acts 26, which is AD 62, twenty-eight years after his conversion.



Your story of you and God is powerful. It’s not old though you may be. It is important and people need to hear it. And you need to tell it. When you don’t know what to say when you are engaged in a talk about religion with someone, tell them your story. Ask them, “Can I tell you my personal story that changed me forever?” Paul did that, and his audience was a tough crowd.



But also, your story never gets old. Tell it even if it’s thirty years old. You may be older but God is the same. It’s still effective. It seems there is no expiration date on telling it. That’s what we see with the apostle Paul.



One of my spiritual heroes and ministry partners is ex-gang member Nicky Cruz. His story is told in The Cross and the Switchblade. Nicky was part of the notorious New York City gang, the Mau Maus. David Wilkerson went to New York City in 1958 and won Nicky to the Lord.



I’ve had the privilege to preach with Nicky around the world, and each time he will tell his conversion story, much as Paul did, with the same passion and conviction. No matter how many years had passed since Nicky’s story, it’s powerful every time. His story has literally brought tens of thousands to Christ.



Don’t underestimate the power of your testimony. It’s funny, Paul never referred to his Epistles when he talked to people. He never said, “I wrote this letter that one day will be part of the Bible, so you should listen.” He told his story. Before you quote the Bible, you may be able to lessen the gap for people by telling them what changed your life.



When you tell your story, as Paul did, you are using one of the weapons God gave us to conquer the devil. Listen to it in the book of Revelation: “They defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony” (Revelation 12:11, TLB).



You may think, my story is not that great. It may not be as dramatic as Nicky’s or Paul’s, but it’s still powerful. Consider what Louie Giglio said about testimonies:



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