We Are Cross Central

06/09/2026

📖 DAY 38 | UNHINDERED: The Gospel on the Move

Acts 22:17–29 (NLT)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2022%3A17–29&version=NLT

The testimony has been going well.

The crowd that tried to beat Paul to death is listening. He has told them about his formation under Gamaliel and his persecution of the followers of the Way. Paul tells them of the blinding light on the Damascus road, the voice of Jesus, the three days of blindness, and Ananias restoring his sight.

They are listening.

Paul continues by telling them about returning to Jerusalem. Praying in the very temple and then a vision of the Lord speaking to him: "Leave Jerusalem, for I will send you far from here to the Gentiles." (v.21, NLT)

The crowd erupts. They had been listening all the way through up to this point.

"The crowd listened until Paul said that word. Then they all began to shout, 'Away with such a fellow! He isn't fit to live!'" (v.22, NLT)

They throw off their cloaks. Toss dust into the air.

The tribune orders Paul to be taken inside and prepared for flogging. Thi is the standard Roman technique for extracting information. And as they stretch Paul out, he drops a bombshell:

"Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn't even been tried?" (v.25, NLT)

Everyone stops. The centurion goes to the tribune. The tribune comes to Paul. He is alarmed because he has already put Paul in chains. The relationship between prisoner and tribune shifts in this moment. 💛

Paul knows what the word "Gentiles" will produce in this crowd. He says it anyway. Because he cannot tell the story of what God has given him to do and leave out the people God has told him to do it for.

The truth we’ve been given is not ours to edit for the audience's comfort.

PRAY 🙏 Lord, give me the courage to say the necessary thing even when I know what saying it will cost. Let me be faithful to the testimony You have given me, not the version of it the audience most wants to hear.

💬 Is there a part of my testimony that I have been editing out because I know it will produce resistance? What would it look like to say the whole thing?

👉 crosscentral.com.au/unhindered

05/09/2026

05/09/2026

📖 DAY 37 | UNHINDERED: The Gospel on the Move

Acts 22:6–16 (NLT)

The testimony continues.

The road to Damascus. Midday. A brilliant light blazes around Paul and his companions. Everyone falls to the ground.

Then a voice:

"Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" (v.7, NLT)

"Who are you, Lord?"

"I am Jesus the Nazarene, the one you are persecuting."

Three days of blindness. Led by the hand into Damascus. Unable to see, eat, or drink. The man who had been breathing threats and violence against the followers of Jesus, now helpless and blind on a Damascus street.

Then Ananias, highly respected by all the Jews of Damascus, comes to him. Restores his sight. And says the words that summarise what Paul has been doing ever since:

"Get up and be baptised. Have your sins washed away by calling on the name of the Lord." (v.16, NLT)

The crowd on the steps is listening to the man they were beating tell them this.

The persecutor became the preacher. The man who imprisoned the followers of Jesus received the same name as the one he had been persecuting. The road to Damascus wasn't Paul finding God; it was God finding Paul on the road, at his most certain and most wrong.

That's what testimony is. Not the story of how you found the truth. The story of how the truth found you. 💛 🔥

PRAY 🙏 Lord, thank You that You found me not when I was looking or when I deserved it. Let that reality shape how I speak to the people around me who are also being found by You before they know they are being found.

💬 Week 6 sermon Sunday today — Finishing The Race, Acts 21:1–38. See you there.

👉 crosscentral.com.au/unhindered

04/09/2026

📖 DAY 36 | UNHINDERED: The Gospel on the Move

Acts 21:37–22:5 (NLT)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2021%3A37–22%3A5&version=NLT

Paul asks to speak, and permission is granted.

Paul stands on the steps, beaten, bleeding and in chains, and raises his hand.

And the mob who just tried to kill him goes quiet.

Paul speaks in Aramaic, which is their own language. The crowd that was shouting becomes a crowd that is listening. 💛

"Brothers and fathers, listen to me as I offer my defence." (22:1, NLT)

What follows is not a legal defence; it is a testimony.

Paul tells them who he is, not who the riot assumed him to be. Born in Tarsus. Raised in Jerusalem. Trained at the feet of Gamaliel in the strict observance of the law of his ancestors. Just as zealous for God as any of them are today.

He tells them what he did and how he persecuted the followers of the Way. He imprisoned both men and women with the authority of the chief priests and the full council. He was not always what he is now.

And then the road to Damascus. But we stop there today.

Here's what we carry into our Saturday.

Paul begins his testimony not by trying to prove his innocence on the specific charges. He begins by giving them a picture of who he actually is. A person formed by the same tradition they were formed by, shaped by the same Scripture, zealous for the same God.

He starts where they are. Not where he wishes they were.

That is always the beginning of genuine witness. Not the defence of our position but the honest presentation of our story. Who we were. What happened. How we came to be where we are today. 🔥

PRAY 🙏 Lord, let me be someone who gives testimony rather than just arguments. Who tells the story of what You have done rather than simply defending the position I have arrived at. Let my witness be personal before it is propositional.

💬 If I were to give my testimony to someone who knew nothing about me, where would I start?

👉 crosscentral.com.au/unhindered

03/09/2026

📖 DAY 35 | UNHINDERED: The Gospel on the Move

Acts 21:27–36 (NLT)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2021%3A27-36&version=NLT

Seven days into the purification rites. Paul is in the temple.

Asian Jews who have seen him in the city with Trophimus the Ephesian, see him in the temple courts and draw a false conclusion that is explosive.

They assume Paul has brought Trophimus into the inner courts. Past the barrier warning Gentiles not to proceed, on pain of death.

Paul has done no such thing. But the assumption, spoken aloud in a crowded temple, moves faster than the truth.

"The whole city was rocked by these accusations, and a great riot followed." (v.30, NLT)

The crowd grabs Paul and drags him out of the temple. The gates slam closed behind him. The mob is trying to kill him.

The commander of the Roman regiment sees the uproar and sends soldiers immediately. The crowd stops beating Paul when they see the Romans coming.

Paul is arrested and tries to figure out what has happened. The crowd is shouting contradictory things. He can't make sense of it. He orders Paul taken into the fortress.

Paul, being carried by the soldiers above the surging crowd, will eventually ask the commander: may I have a word with you? 💛

He has just been beaten by a crowd. He is in chains, bleeding. The mob continues to shout murderous threats… tomorrow we’ll discover what Paul will do

PRAY 🙏 Lord, give me the kind of settled identity that cannot be shaken by the crowd's verdict. Help me to know who I am and what I am here to do regardless of what the crowd is shouting.

💬 When has something false been believed about me that I couldn't immediately correct? How did I handle it?

👉 crosscentral.com.au/unhindered

02/09/2026

📖 DAY 34 | UNHINDERED: The Gospel on the Move

Acts 21:15–26 (NLT)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%2021%3A15-26&version=NLT

Paul arrives in Jerusalem.

The whole community receives him warmly. The next morning James and the Jerusalem elders listen to everything God has done among the Gentiles. And they glorify God.

Then James names a problem.

Tens of thousands of Jewish believers in Jerusalem have heard a rumour. Paul supposedly teaches Jewish believers among the Gentiles to abandon Moses, stop circumcising their children and forsake the ancestral customs. The rumour is inaccurate and is producing anxiety in a community already under enormous social pressure.

James proposes that four men are completing a Nazirite vow and that Paul should join their purification rites. Paul should sponsor their temple expenses to demonstrate publicly that he lives in observance of Jewish law.

Paul agrees, and this is an often overlooked moment of personal sacrifice.

Paul, who has fought for Gentile freedom from the law, now performs a public act of Jewish religious adherence, not as a compromise or betrayal, but as a genuine act of love for a community whose anxiety is real and whose unity matters more to him than his own convenience.

He is not giving up what he believes. Paul is choosing the community over his own comfort. He is doing what he has always said he does: to the Jews I became as a Jew. 💛

Paul’s conformity doesn't prevent the riot that follows. It never does when the opposition isn't really about what you've done but about what you represent.

Yet it was still the right thing to do.

PRAY 🙏 Lord, give me Paul's willingness to make personal sacrifices for the sake of unity even when those conformities don't produce the outcome I had hoped for. Let love for the community shape what I am willing to do, not just what I believe.

💬 What is a costly sacrifice I have made for the sake of someone else's peace or unity? Was it worth it?

👉 crosscentral.com.au/unhindered

01/09/2026

📖 DAY 32 | UNHINDERED: The Gospel on the Move�

Acts 20:25–38 (NLT)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2020%3A25–38&version=NLT

Monday, Paul told the Ephesian elders what the work has been for. Today he tells them what comes next for the community he is leaving.

He is not coming back.

"And now I know that none of you to whom I have preached the kingdom will ever see me again." (v.25, NLT)

That is a hard sentence to say to people you love. And Paul says without softening it, because they need to know it is true before they can receive what follows.

Then the warning.

"I know that false teachers, like vicious wolves, will come in among you after I leave, not sparing the flock. Even some men from your own group will rise up and distort the truth in order to draw a following." (v.29–30, NLT)

Not opposition from outside. The greatest threats come from without and from within. Wolves who arrive looking like something other than wolves. And leaders inside the community who modify the message to draw a following to themselves. Paul names both clearly because the elders who are about to lead need to know what they are guarding against. 💛

And then the sentence that carries Paul's trust.

"And now I entrust you to God and to the message of his grace." (v.32, NLT)

Not to a succession plan or an institutional structure or even the charisma of the next leader. To God and to the message of His grace. The same message Paul identified in verse 24 as the content of the work he is finishing. The message that has the power to build up and that gives an inheritance.

Paul can leave because the community is not his to keep. He can go toward Jerusalem because the people he loves are not in his hands but are in God's. The hands that hold them are more than enough.

Paul closes with the words of Jesus not found anywhere in the Gospels:

"It is more blessed to give than to receive." (v.35, NLT)

The ministry of generous self-giving, Jesus says, is the more blessed way. Not more noble but more blessed. It is the deeper joy and the greater fullness.

Then they kneel. They pray. They weep and embrace, then walk Paul to the ship. 🔥

PRAY 🙏
�Lord, give me Paul's confidence in entrusting what I love to You, trusting that Your hands hold what I must release. Let me receive the truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive, not as an empty platitude but as the trajectory of my life and service.

💬 Today's question:
�Is there something or someone I am holding with a grip that belongs to God rather than to you? What would it look like to entrust them to God and to the message of His grace?

Drop a comment or share this today. 👇

🏷️ Tag someone who has modelled the generous self-giving life: who gives more than they receive and is more blessed for it.

📌 61-day reading plan:�👉 crosscentral.com.au/unhindered

31/08/2026

📖 DAY 33 | UNHINDERED: The Gospel on the Move�

Acts 21:1–14 (NLT)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%2021%3A1-14&version=NLT

The ship leaves Miletus. The Ephesian elders standing on the shore, weeping, growing smaller as the distance opens between them.

And Paul sails toward Jerusalem.

At every stop on the journey, Tyre, Ptolemais, Caesarea, the same thing happens. Disciples find Paul. The Spirit warns Paul through them, and they beg him not to go.

In Caesarea, the prophet Agabus arrives. He takes Paul's belt, binds his own hands and feet with it, and declares:

"The Holy Spirit declares, 'So shall the owner of this belt be bound by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and turned over to the Gentiles.'" (v.11, NLT)

The room erupts. The disciples, Luke, and the whole company beg Paul not to go.

Paul says:

"Why all this weeping? You are breaking my heart! I am ready not only to be jailed at Jerusalem but even to die for the sake of the Lord Jesus." (v.13, NLT)

Paul is not indifferent to their tears. He is not performing noble courage. He says plainly: you are breaking my heart. The weeping costs him something real.

And he goes anyway.

Not because Paul doesn't feel the weight of what waits, but because the One who is sending him is worth more than the cost of going.

The community around him receives this. They stop urging him.

"When it was clear that we couldn't persuade him, we gave up and said, 'The Lord's will be done.'" (v.14, NLT)

The Lord's will be done. The words of Gethsemane. Spoken by ordinary people on a beach in Caesarea, releasing the person they love into the hands of the God who loves him more. 💛

PRAY 🙏
�Lord, give me the courage to go where You are sending me, even when the people I love are begging me not to. Give me the grace to release the people I love into Your hands when I cannot go with them.

💬 Today's question:�
Is there something God is clearly directing me toward that the voices around me, even well-meaning ones, are urging me away from?

👉 crosscentral.com.au/unhindered

30/08/2026

📖 DAY 31 | UNHINDERED: The Gospel on the Move�

Acts 20:13–24 (NLT)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ACTS%2020%3A13-24&version=NLT

Paul walks from Troas to Assos.

The rest of the party sails. Paul walks alone, overland, while the ship follows the coastline. Luke gives us no explanation for why. But there is something in the detail worth sitting with. The man who is heading toward imprisonment in Jerusalem takes a solitary walk before the final movement begins.

From Assos they sail south along the Aegean coast. Mitylene, Chios, Samos, Miletus. Paul has deliberately bypassed Ephesus. He wants to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost, and there isn't time for what an Ephesian visit would demand. Instead, he sends word to Miletus, the coastal city thirty miles south and asks the Ephesian elders to come to him.

They come. And Paul begins to speak.

"You know that from the day I set foot in the province of Asia until now I have done the Lord's work humbly and with many tears. I have endured the trials that came to me from the plots of the Jews." (v.18–19, NLT)

Humbly. With many tears. Enduring trials.

This is not the opening of someone presenting a highlight reel. It is the honest account of a person giving witness to what the work actually cost from the inside, from the place of someone who served through difficulty rather than despite it. Not performed nobility. The real thing.

And then the moment the whole series has been building toward. The verse that has been the anchor verse for our whole series, in its original context, spoken by the person who wrote it with his life:

"But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work that the Lord Jesus gave me to do — the work of telling others the good news about the wonderful grace of God." (v.24, NLT)

There it is.

Not a tagline. Not a motivational slogan. The honest statement of a person who has spent twenty years following Jesus through the consequences of that following and who has arrived, through all of it, at a settled clarity about what life is for.

His life is worth nothing to him unless he uses it for the work.

Not his death. His life. The daily expenditure of his days. What he spends his hours on. What he stays up until midnight for. What he walks alone to Assos for. What he is willing to go to Jerusalem for, knowing imprisonment waits.

The wonderful grace of God. That is worth his life. 💛

PRAY 🙏
�Lord, let me arrive where Paul arrived. At the settled clarity that the work of telling others the good news about Your wonderful grace is worth my life. Not my death. My life. The ordinary days. Let me spend them on what is worth the spending.

💬 Today's question:
�If we were to give an honest account of what our life is currently for, what would we say? And is it the same answer Acts 20:24 gives?

Drop a comment or share this today. 👇

🏷️ Tag someone who embodies Acts 20:24. Whose life is visibly spent on the work that matters most.
�
👉 crosscentral.com.au/unhindered