I’ve heard from several people lately who are doing (and enjoying) the 2009 reading plan through the N.T. and Psalms & Proverbs … sweet!

So before getting to today’s chapter, check out a verse from the last chapter: Acts 20:6. Did you notice the word “we.” “But WE sailed…” Before this verse, I don’t think “we” appears in Acts. It’s all, “Paul left…” and “They went…” and “Paul and Timothy travelled to…” But in Acts 20:6 “they” becomes “we.” And “we” appears all throughout today’s reading (Acts 21).

Apparently, Luke (the author) learned of the first 19 chapters of Acts through journalistic investigation, but in Acts 20 he joined the team. In Acts 20, Luke started actually traveling with Paul, doing ministry with Paul, getting persecuted with Paul. My guess is that Luke loved writing “we.” He wrote it with pride, smiling to himself, “That’s when I stopped being a spectator, a bystander, and I started really doing something for God. That’s where I stopped knowing the story, and started living the story. I became a part of God’s epic drama.”

There have been times, in my nineteen years of being a Christian, where I would have written “they” and there are times when I could have written “we.” Times where really I was more a spectator, and times when I was fully in the game. What about you? Right now, are you a “they” or are you a “we”? We need to be we’s! What will it take for you to become a we? Do it!

Let’s let one of my favorite quotes, from Teddy Roosevelt, inspire you:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”