Are We Willing to Die for our Faith? (Thrice/Ivoryline)

Man, I have been so convicted this morning. I thought I would share it with you guys. I'm not entirely sure how to put it in words, so I apologize if this  is mumbo jumbo.

I've been reading in Acts, and it's a little hard to "apply" sometimes. But I've been encouraged by a Bible Study leader, and a Professor at my school, to read deeper. To not just "read the words". To really try to visualize what happened, and to dig deeper than just one run-through. I started doing that, and really asking the Holy Spirit to give me understanding, and man. I feel like I've missed a lot. I want to read through it over again!!

But the point of this was to share the specific lesson I'm learning. So here goes:

In Acts 20, Paul is traveling to Miletus, and when he gets there, he calls for the elders of the church of Ephesus. He then makes a farewell speech to them. This hit me really hard. Here's what it says:

"And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God, and now behold I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. .... In all thing I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

Paul knew he wasn't going to get to see these guys again,  yet he still went to Jerusalem!!! Later on they sail to Tyre, where in the Holy Spirit, his companions warn him not to go to Jerusalem. I don't completely understand the whole "God said to go" now "God said to not go", I believe that some of what was said was lost in translation, and that the Holy Spirit was probably letting the people at Tyre know that they would not see Paul again, that he would die if he went to Jerusalem. I think that this news probably greatly saddened the people, and they told him not to go. But in any case, Paul went to Caesarea from Tyre, and there, a man named Agabus came down from Judea.
"And coming to us, he took Paul's belt and bounded his own feet and hands and said, "Thus says the Holy Spirit, 'this is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt  and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'" When we heard this, we and the people  there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, "What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."

Something in Peter, Paul, Stephen, Simon of Niger... something changed. Something told them that this gospel was worth being killed for. They were so in love with God that they couldn't be stopped. Not even the gates of hell could stop them!!! They were so convinced that the gospel was the truth, that they couldn't see any point in doing anything other than evangelizing the world. I don't know if whoever you are reading this have stopped because you don't believe the Bible, but I don't see how someone knowing that they were going to be killed for sharing something, would continue to do it, if they knew the thing they were sharing was a hoax. Don't be fooled, these guys died for their faith. Some of them in the most gruesome ways.
But I'm not here to prove God to you. I'm here to say that I'm so convicted that I don't love God the same way these guys did. I'm not able to say "I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die for the name of the Lord Jesus". I can't say that, not in all honesty. So I've been praying that the same Holy Spirit that was given to Paul, and also to me, would teach me to love, and pursue Christ, in the same way that he pursued me. That I would see him as something worth dying for.

I'm challenged by this, I need to be so in love with this gospel, that I'm willing to look foolish and get hurt by other people by their scoffing, and even by their punches.

There's a couple songs that came to mind after reading this passage that I thought I would share with you. One of them is by a band called

Thrice,


The other by Ivoryline: