Acts 21:1-16

All of us want to know the will of God. But when His will doesn't mirror ours, we can find ourselves in a quandary. Do we accept His will even though we don't like it? Do we question whether it really is His will? And do we consider disobeying it if we decide it's something we would prefer not to do? The apostle Paul faced this dilemma. Well, if the truth be told, it wasn't so much him, as it was his well-meaning Christian friends who found the will of God for Paul's life, as revealed by the Spirit of God, to be hard to comprehend and accept. But Paul would remain resolute and committed to the will of God for his life, even when it wasn't exactly pleasant. In Acts 21:1-16, Luke begins his description of Paul's journey to Jerusalem, where, according to a vision from the Holy Spirit, Paul will face suffering and persecution for the sake of the gospel. But rather than resist or recoil from such news, Paul accepted it as God's will and set his mind to go exactly where the Spirit had told him to go. And as he made his way, the message from the Spirit was confirmed by others. But rather than encourage Paul, they attempted to get him to avoid Jerusalem altogether. In other words, they tried to get him to preserve his life by rejecting God's will for his life. But that was not something Paul was willing to do.