Acts 20:22-21:15

Some decisions are easier to make than others are. Choosing what to wear to the store is easier than choosing what to wear on a first date. One of the hardest decisions Paul ever had to make was deciding to go to Jerusalem.

Paul had good reasons for going. He was carrying a love offering from the churches to help the poor of Jerusalem. He helped raise the offering and wanted to deliver it and share the work that God was doing among the gentiles.

God wanted Paul to do the right thing, but he did not want him to do it out of ignorance or false expectations. It would have been false faith for Paul to believe that God was going to protect him when he went to Jerusalem. When the Holy Spirit told Paul he would be safe in Corinth, Paul believed, and that belief was faith. The Holy Spirit did not give him that assurance about his trip to Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit did just the opposite, He used the disciples at Tyre to warn Paul and he used the prophet Agabus with an object lesson to tell Paul of the dangers he faced in Jerusalem. The fear of danger was a rational reason not to go.

When Luke and his traveling companions begged Paul not to go, their weeping and honest distress broke Paul’s heart. They gave Paul a strong emotional reason to stay away from Jerusalem. Still, Paul had to make the decision himself; nobody else could make it for him.

When making a decision, if we asked the wrong questions, we will make the wrong decision. Paul was not looking to find the easiest, safest, cheapest, most popular or fastest answer. He was looking for the right answer. He wanted to please God and be true to his mission to spread the gospel. Pleasing God is seldom the safest, easiest, quickest or most popular decision, but it is always the right decision. Desiring to please God makes our hard decisions easier.