I Have No Choice But to Go!

Acts 20:17-24

Romans 8:5-16

            So much of our lives are lived in, by and through knee jerk reactions. We tend to look at a set of circumstances and then decide how best to navigate through them. We make determinations about life and death issues based on perceptions of what provides the best opportunity to be positioned for success. We have been taught this way of thinking in school and at home. We have been so thoroughly indoctrinated into this way of thinking that we almost cannot help ourselves. We use this process in most every situation. Considerations about education are made considering what field will provide the most money and the greatest opportunity for advancement. We tend to choose mates according to who will fit the best into our vision for the future. Even ministry is subjected to the filter of choice. We have the right to choose our path in life. Choice is the one thing God does not take from us. But we forget that our wisdom is weak and flawed. We forget our wisdom is not God’s wisdom. So, we make choices but much of the time end up making the wrong choices because our flesh instead of the Spirit of God led us.

            The Apostle Paul had a hugely successful ministry among the Gentiles, especially in the province of Asia. Everywhere he traveled people, Jews and Gentiles alike, came to faith in Jesus. But everywhere he went he also encountered intense persecution from the Jews who opposed him and his message. Now he has made up his mind to travel back to Jerusalem, back to the seat of Jewish authority. He knows, however, that the reception he is likely to receive will not be a good one. Repeatedly he is warned about what waits for him there and still he is determined to go. Why would he choose to go where he knows trouble and hardship waits? The answer lies not in his choosing but in the Holy Spirit’s compelling. Paul tells the elders from Ephesus that he is compelled by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. In other translations the word compelled is not used but rather ‘bound’. The sense of the Greek is that he has been tied up, bound by the Spirit so that he has no choice but to go. What a stark difference from our manner of making decisions. Here is an aspect of the Holy Spirit that we often ignore. We want the ecstatic benefits of the Spirit but not the direction. What we need is to be compelled. What does it mean to be compelled by the Spirit?

1. Our minds are attuned to the Spirit. (Romans 8:5-7)

2. Our bodies are attuned to the Spirit. (Romans 8:9-11)

3. Our wills are attuned to the Spirit. (Galatians 5:25) There is a sense in which the Spirit is always out ahead of us. We must keep up. We must stay in sync.

4. Our spirits are attuned to the Spirit. (Romans 8:12-16)

When the Spirit compels us, we like Paul, will find ourselves always in a state of being constrained or propelled. When the Spirit moves, we move. When the Spirit stops, we stop. Like the cloud in the wilderness, we are completely submitted to His leading. Paul was compelled to go to Jerusalem. He had no choice. What compels us today?