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As Paul got ready to return to Jerusalem, he was warned that hardship and imprisonment awaited him. Yet he went to Jerusalem anyway?

Why? Why go when hardship awaits you? Simple, Paul was a man of passion, a man who followed the call of God, a man who operated out of the power and under the leading of the Holy Spirit! He would do what the Spirit showed him he must do!

You see, Paul may have come to Jesus late - having been trained as a Rabbi, overseen the stoning of Stephen, and persecuted the church - but once he gave his life to Jesus, Paul made a major turn around in his life, but there was no no turning down his passion. In fact, Jesus wanted to turn Paul around and have him follow, but he didn't want to tone him down! He wanted the fiesty and fiery Paul, full of bravery and obedience.

So when Paul faced death, he faced it with confidence, convinced the Lord was going to award him the victors crown (2 Timothy 4:6-8). For him meant living for Jesus and to die meant dying for Jesus. His prayer was that God be glorified in whatever he did (Philippians 1:18-26).

Too often, I fear, we have made coming to Jesus mean that we are trying to help people be nice. But Jesus didn't want to domesticate Paul and make him a nice little preacher. Instead, he wanted Paul to be passionate and bold! No playing it safe! Jesus wanted to take Paul's gifts, passions, and fiesty-ness and channel them so that Paul could be profoundly useful to the Kingdom.

And today, Jesuslongs to do these same things in us. He wants us to turn around and live for God, but he does not want to tone us down.