You’re reading ACTS: LESSONS IN FAITH, by Eric Elder, featuring thirty inspiring devotionals based on the lives of the very first followers of Christ. Also available in paperback and eBook formats in our bookstore for a donation of any size!

Scripture Reading: Acts 21

I remember the fear that came over me when I read the headline in our college newspaper that Congress had reinstated the draft and all men my age were to report immediately to serve in the military.

I couldn’t believe it.  I’m not against serving in the military, but I had been considering studying abroad in the coming year, but I hadn’t made up my mind yet.  Traveling alone, the cost of the program and other fears held me back from making a decision.  But now, with the possibility that I might have to go into the service, and might even die doing it, my fears of studying abroad paled in comparison.

As I headed to the men’s showers that morning, I was still shaking my head in disbelief when someone else walked in and commented on the article.  He asked if I noticed the date on the paper.  It was April 1st―April Fool’s Day here in the U.S.  The whole article was a hoax.

Even though my heart rate began to slow down, my mind was just getting started.  Having faced the possibility of death, I felt now that I was given a new shot at life.  I decided that day to study abroad and the following year I did.

Facing death has a way of waking us up and bringing us back to life.  Jesus said it like this:

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it” (Matthew 16:25). 

The Apostle Paul had an abundant life, in large part, I believe, because he was willing to lose his life at any moment.  Although he certainly didn’t have a death wish, he wasn’t afraid to die for Christ, either.

In Acts 21, Paul was warned by men and by the Holy Spirit that if he continued on his journey to the city of Jerusalem, he would be bound in chains when he got there.  Paul’s friends pleaded with him not to go to Jerusalem, but Paul replied:

“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” (Acts 21:13). 

Paul went on to Jerusalem, and was indeed bound and put into prison.  The rest of the book of Acts documents his travels from prison to prison as his case was appealed to higher and higher authorities all the way to Caesar in Rome.  Although the book of Acts ends before the end of Paul’s life, church tradition tells us that Paul was eventually beheaded in Rome for his faith.

There are times when God calls people to use their faith to raise the dead, as Paul had just done for Eutycus in Acts 20.  But there are also times when God calls people to use their faith to be ready to die, as Paul was ready in Acts 21.  But how can the same faith lead to two such different results?  Paul tell us in Romans 14:7-8:

“For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord” (Romans 14:7-8). 

It was Paul’s willingness to die for Christ that allowed him to live for Christ so boldly.  Some thought he was foolish to go to Jerusalem when he was warned about what awaited him there.  But as another missionary named James Elliot wrote:  “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

God has many things He wants to do for you by faith.  But God also has many things He wants to do through you by faith―for others.

How would it change your life if you were truly willing to die for Christ? If you truly no longer feared death?  According to the Apostle Paul, the missionary Jim Elliot, and even Jesus Christ Himself, it’s only when you’re ready to lose your life for Christ that you will truly find it.

Prayer: Father, help me to be ready to die for Christ so that I can truly live for Him.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.