2002-01-01
Good Morning Fellow Believers,
Of all the people in the Bible, the one with whom I most relate is Paul, once known as Saul of Tarsus. Please understand that I am not trying to compare myself or my work the greatness of his work or his “born again” character. But the Lord leads me to write about him in the context of the mercy he recognized was extended to him. An outsider might ask: How can a man who suffered so much in so many ways feel that God has extended mercy to him? I have a first-hand understanding of that mercy which is also extended to me and to all believers. Like Paul, I was patently undeserving of that mercy. Today, we begin by looking at a wonderful passage, 1 TIM 1: 12-17.
1 TIM 1: 12-13, “I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord, Who has give me strength for my work. I thank him for considering me worthy and appointing me to serve Him, even though in the past I spoke evil of Him and insulted Him. But God was merciful to me because I did not yet have the faith and so did not know what I was doing.” As Saul of Tarsus, this man enjoyed prestige and acceptance among his colleagues. This Pharisee was a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. His was an unpleasant job (traveling to seek out Jewish Christians for arrest and persecution), and he had the motivation to do it [AC 9:1-2]. By no means was Saul a wall flower. Had any modern day believer known him personally, it would have been easy to come to the conclusion that this man would never be the right person to receive God’s eternal blessings and be an important servant for Him. That goes to show us how important it is for us not to judge others, usurping the authority that only Christ has been given [DN 7: 13-14]. Like Paul, I spent my early life rejecting “religion” as something my parents shoved down my throat, which didn’t go down easily. My behavior, particularly in my early teenage years was hardly that of God’s servant. Instead, I spent my time with the wrong crowd committing acts of vandalism, running my mouth, and in general attempting to show everyone else that I had all the answers. My age-mates were hard on me, and I was hard on them in response. PR 3: 5-6 meant nothing to me, and studying the Bible was one of the things I avoided like the plague.
1 TIM 1: 14-16, “And our Lord poured out His abundant grace on me and gave me the faith and love which are ours in union with Christ Jesus. This is a true saying, to be completely accept and believed: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinner. I am the worst of them, but God was merciful to me in order that Christ Jesus might show His full patience in dealing with me, the worst of sinners, as an example for all those who would later believe in Him and receive eternal life.” Saul had to be made to understand both God’s will for him and His power to see it come to pass. That fact makes the story of Saul’s conversion so compelling. We all know the account, which he gives in AC 9: 3-16 and again in AC 22: 6-16 and AC 26: 12-18, which I hope you will read. I never tire of this story, because of the grace and power in it, but also because of the extraordinary compassion and mercy in it. How many of us would extend mercy and kindness-even eventually esteem- to person who berates us and persecutes our friends? I’ll venture to say, not many. But, that is exactly what Christ did for Saul of Tarsus who eventually became known as Paul. When Paul thanks Christ for giving him the strength to do his work, he really touches my heart. Paul describes in detail the suffering that he had to endure in 2 COR 11: 22-33. Yet, the depth of the faith that God gave Paul allowed him to overcome. Once he came to faith, he never strayed off course or gave up despite Satan’s efforts to force him to do so. There are days, when my work and problems in my personal life seem almost to overwhelm me. Then, I think of Paul and the others on our prayer chain whose suffering is so much greater than my own. God uses this method to force me to keep His perspective and has given me and each believer the faith to overcome these challenges. Because Paul never lost faith, I don’t want to do that either.
1 TIM 1: 17, “To the eternal King, immortal and invisible, the only God-to Him be honor and glory forever and ever! Amen.” Paul’s physical death came at the hands of the Romans. He taught others about Jesus Christ, speaking with boldness and freedom [AC 28: 31] until the very end. I have deep faith that He is in heaven with the Father walking streets of gold among God’s honored ones. The same mercy and love that God extended to Paul is extended to all those who will endure in their faith no matter what their past lives were or what time in human history in which they live. So, Dear Ones, this applies to all of us. For someone who has been such a difficult work for God to sanctify as myself, I must witness to the gratitude and love that I feel for our Deity in being so merciful to me. He has certainly brought about change in my life that I could never have enjoyed or made without His intervention in it. We must pause and reflect on our own lives, taking time to discover how God’s mercy is manifested in each of them.
PRAYER: O Lord, the greatest mercy of all that has ever been shown is Your sacrifice of Christ on the cross, so that we might have the path of salvation opened to us. That You chose to make this great decision at a time when we certainly didn’t deserve it and we were Your enemies is nothing short of amazing! You are an awesome God, Who brings truth, goodness, and the hope of eternal life into our lives. Without You we have such a poverty of spirit and are capable of such profound evil that we would surely be headed for destruction and death in the lake of fire and sulfur. Through the death of Your Son, our repentance, and our faith in Him, You have given us as a merciful free gift of Your grace true eternal forgiveness. You have wiped our slates clean and given us streams of life-giving water from Your heart that can now flow from ours too [JN 7: 38]. For those who love You, Your grace knows no bounds. David’s words describe well your mercy in PS 78: 38-39. “But God was merciful to His people. He forgave their sins and did not destroy them. Many times He held back His anger and restrained His fury. He remember that they were only mortal beings, like a wind that blows by and is gone.” We join David using his words in PS 96: 1-3 to express how we feel. “Sing a new son to the Lord! Sing to the Lord, all the world! Sing to the Lord, and praise Him! Proclaim every day the good news that He has saved us. Proclaim His glory to the nations, His mighty acts to all peoples.” We humbly confess our sin, and offer You, Dearest Abba, our eternal worship, adoration, loyalty, diligence, honor, glory, trust, obedience, praise, and thanks. Like Paul, we are each honored to be Your servants. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.
There are a lot of people who have grown up with the burden of guilt placed upon them both by the original sin and by people who have conveyed Satan’s lies in a believable way to them as children. I am led in tomorrow’s message to take up what the Scriptures have to say about guilt, so that we can God’s perspective on this nasty and favorite weapon Satan uses. In the meanwhile, we can offer thanks to our loving Abba Who through the Scriptures and prayer makes the truth known to us. We can further thank Him Who sent us the Holy Spirit, so that we could have a deeper, more life-changing understanding of these marvelous truths. God truly loves us and has adopted each believer as His child. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn