What if someone told you that what you believed about God was wrong? Let me tell you the story of the apostle, Paul. He wasn’t always an apostle…
Paul was a deeply religious man. He grew up in what is now southern Turkey, and at some point, his parents sent him to Jerusalem to study. His teacher, Gamaliel, was the best-known rabbi of that time. Paul studied hard. I’m sure he had most,
if not all, of the Old Testament memorized. Besides being super-educated, he was a Pharisee. This meant that he followed the traditions that, over the years, the Pharisees had come up with. These traditions were nit-picky, ridiculous rules. These rules didn’t come from the Bible, they were simply traditions. Keeping all of them was hard—impossible really. However, Paul was committed to keeping them. I’m sure he rarely failed. So here’s Paul, a die-hard, passionate, religious, rule-following man.
But he’s also a killer—a killer of Christians. Why? Because those Christians believed Jesus was the Son of God, that He had died and then had risen from the dead. Those Christians actually believed that Jesus was alive again! They said Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy—that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah. “They lie!” he thought. Paul believed in the one true God—he thought. He worshipped the one true God—he thought. It enraged Paul! I mean he wasn’t just upset. It didn’t just cause him to lose a little sleep. To him, the Christians were beyond outrageous. They deserved to die. So, he hunted them down, threw them in prison, and even murdered them.
And then one day, the living Jesus appeared to super-religious, defender-of-God Paul. And Jesus said, “Why are you persecuting Me?” I can’t imagine what it would be like to have the living Jesus confront me, in all His glory…and ask me why I was doing what I was doing…meanwhile, I’m thinking what I’m doing is super-religious and super-right. And then to learn I was actually totally wrong? This would be frightening to say the least. Well, a face-to-face meeting with the living Jesus caused Paul to see that everything he had believed all his life had been wrong. It took the power of Jesus to open Paul’s eyes to truth. Paul’s understanding of the Old Testament had been completely wrong. He had thought serving God was about following all the picky rules and working at being perfect. Honoring God was simply about doing the right stuff. What Paul learned is that God wanted His heart, his faith, and his obedience. Paul had been wrong. And it had all been right before his eyes all along…in the Bible.
So what about you? What if the living Jesus told you that making sure you get a baby baptized has nothing to do with being saved or going to heaven? What if the living Jesus told you that praying to anyone other than God, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit is unacceptable to God? What if the living Jesus said eternal life is found by grace through faith in Him? What if the living Jesus said there is not one thing you can do that helps earn you a spot in heaven? What if the living Jesus told you that the Word of God is the only source of truth? He already has. In the Bible. Read it and believe. If you would like prayer or need a Bible, let us know.
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