The Whole Will of God

 DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

THE WHOLE WILL OF GOD

Acts 20:25-31

 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 all men.   27 For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. 28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. 29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.

NIV

We do want to remember that Paul had sent word to Ephesus for the elders there to come to Miletus so that he could give them some final remarks as he was sure that he would never come to see them again, although we know that he did write them a letter sometime later. We do wonder if we can claim that we are innocent of the blood of all men. We do know that we do not hesitate to proclaim the truth of God, however, we wonder if we proclaim the whole will of God to all men. It would seem the time and culture of then and now are so entirely different that we wonder if it is even possible to declare the whole will of God to all men. Our culture is so filled with the hustle and bustle of life with people completely engrossed in the various methods of social media, they have no time or no interest in spending any time at all in personal one-on-one conversations about anything, much less the whole will of God. In Paul’s time, there were no such distractions, no cell phones, no television, or other electronic devices to isolate themselves from personal encounters. In fact, while Paul was in Athens, he was invited to speak before the stoics and epicureans, for they enjoyed debates and philosophical discussions, for that is how they spent their time. This does not happen for various reasons, as it could be seen as offensive to someone or a small segment of our society and thus a public discussion, even a personal discussion could be interpreted as offensive. Yet we have been called to be like shining stars in the universe, and to be the light of the world. We will get to his words of wisdom to the elders of the church, but we cannot overlook this first part of his words to them which should apply to most, if not all, of us believers. Yet, again, this was Paul and he was called to be this Apostle of God to the gentiles and maybe certainly all of us are not called to be an apostle or an evangelist on the road declaring the whole will of God. Still, it strikes a chord within our hearts that we are called to go into all the world and preach the good news. Again, that may not mean physically traveling the roads of the world, although that is what Jesus expected his disciples to do. However, we can apply that in our culture in that we can go into the world of business, retail, the trades, the professional world, medical, law, engineering, education, and so many others so that we are spread out all over our culture, thus being able to personally encounter people in our portion of the world. In those places, we can speak the whole will of God, perhaps not all in one breath, but over time, being light and shining stars, we can gradually be innocent of the blood of all men. But if we remain silent, then what?