Take Courage

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

TAKE COURAGE

Acts 23:11-15

11 The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, "Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome."  12 The next morning the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. 13 More than forty men were involved in this plot. 14 They went to the chief priests and elders and said, "We have taken a solemn oath not to eat anything until we have killed Paul. 15 Now then, you and the Sanhedrin petition the commander to bring him before you on the pretext of wanting more accurate information about his case. We are ready to kill him before he gets here."

NIV

We are about to begin a very detailed and lengthy account, including conversations, of what is going on between the Jews, Paul, the son of Paul’s sister and the commander of the Roman troops. We have already seen the hostility of the Jews against Paul and here we are seeing that inward hostility coming to fruition in a plot to actually kill Paul. Men who are so intent in their living by the law actually taking an oath to take another man’s life. There could be a life lesson in that for us. Of course not in the sense that we would ever plot to kill another person, but that our inner hostility toward someone might manifest itself in some form of rude or unacceptable behavior toward them. This is why we are instructed by our Lord to love others as we love ourselves. When we allow inner feelings of any sort that are other than loving toward others, those feelings whatever they may be will eventually bring about some outward manifestation of them. Although this is a life lesson we could and should focus on, we also have the words of the Lord as he speaks to Paul. Note, this was not recorded as an angel of the Lord, but the Lord himself standing near Paul and speaking to him. We are not told that Paul was in a trance, or that he saw a vision, but that the Lord stood near him and told Paul to take courage and told him where he was going to go and what he was going to do. All too often we humans make way too many decisions in life based upon our own understanding, but we have been admonished to trust in the Lord with all our hearts and not to lean on our own understanding, but to acknowledge him in all our ways, and he will direct our paths.  Proverbs 3:5-6. This was the life of Paul, he trusted in the Lord completely and did not lean on his own understanding, and here we see what that kind of life brings. The Lord himself stood next to Paul and directed his path. This is the kind of life we should be living as well. We need to trust in the Lord with all our hearts, which is even when the circumstances seem less than desirable in our eyes, and wait for him to come to us and direct our paths. Now that does not necessarily mean we should go to Rome, or someplace else for that matter, but he will direct us, he will make our path straight, he will give us directions as to what we are to do. Perhaps he will instruct us to leave one place and go to another, perhaps he will instruct us to stay put as he has something for us to accomplish in the place he already has sent us. The point is that he will, not we will, make the decision. What we have to do is take courage.