Journey

The Fayetteville Church’s (TFC) devo for today is titled "Strength for the Journey", so I thought I’d take a minute or so to identify what a journey is (or could be).  Aside from the obvious dictionary definition, a journey is trip of some sort, and could be short, long, interesting, dull, productive, wasteful or even exciting or downright dangerous.

Our journey into 2012 could be a Biblical one, if we choose it to be.  One way we could make it one, as well as make it be productive and exciting, is to follow in the path of one who traveled several journeys proclaiming the Christ.  And of course, that Biblical character was Paul.  He had three recorded missionary journeys (Acts 13 and 14 – 1^{st journey; Acts 15 to 18—2nd journey; and Acts 18 to 23—3rd journey).  In addition to these three trips which brought him all over the ‘world’ (that counted, anyway, back then), Paul experienced a less fun, but certainly dangerous, journey to Rome. Acts 27 and 28 record a lot of that adventure.  Of course, the other books that Paul wrote and were included in the Bible gives us a lot more detail of each of those sojourns that he experienced.}

To make our yearly jaunt an exciting and rewarding one, TFC suggests we need to be ‘in shape’ for the trip.  To get in shape, I’d recommend reading each of Paul’s excursions and identifying the high points of each, and see if we can emulate just some of the teachings he presented about our Savior.   Get in shape---read, pray and study.  Work out with others—don’t travel alone.  This is a great year (with seemingly terrific weather in store) for us to get out in groups and advance God’s Kingdom.  Paul took his best friends with him on his travels, suggesting two heads (or more) and better than one.  We can each learn from each other if we journey this year together.

I hope each of you decide to ‘go somewhere’ this year, and I don’t mean Florida!  What I mean is to advance ourselves spiritually in some manner.  Whether it is deciding to have a quiet time with God every day in prayer, or to study His Word each day, or to evangelize outside of our homes, we will be rewarded with great pleasures.