Paul went up again after fourteen years to the elders in Jerusalem, to share with them what he had been doing and the message he had been preaching all these years among the Gentiles. So this was the second time he was going up to Jerusalem for accountability purposes. What humility! The critical phrase there was that he went to Jerusalem, ‘by revelation’. What does this mean? It meant that God revealed to him that he needed to go and submit to the leaders in Jerusalem. It’s not that Paul was doing anything wrong but it was necessary that Paul was reporting to a group of people, lest error might have crept in without his knowing and all his life’s work in the gospel would have been in vain.

We need not wait until we get a heavenly revelation before we do this. We need to have a group of people who can check up on our doctrine, our manner of living, our passion for God and our ministry methodology. We need to go in for a regular ‘spiritual check up’, even though we may feel we are doing ok. This regular check up is needful if we are to be faithful to God in these last days of dissipation and we do not end up with regrets on the final Day.

‘Lord, thank you for giving me my group that I can be submissive to. Lord I pray that those whom you’ve put over me will take this duty seriously and perform the necessary check up I need for my life and ministry. Lord, prevent me from running my life in vain. Amen.’