The Devotional – Search the Scriptures – 758
The Devotional – Search the Scriptures – 758
Today’s Kick Start! – (CSB) Isaiah 55 6Seek the Lord while he may be found; call to him while he is near.
Personal Obedience—Walk in the Spirit and you will not carry out the deeds of the flesh.
Acts 9 31 Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied.
JESUS CHRIST: He IS the same Yesterday, He IS the same Today, He IS God Forever!
While reading scripture many of us (myself included) fail to understand ‘the all’ of what God is offering to us through His Word. Saul before Jesus the Messiah rescued him out of the world was a hardened Pharisee who believed that anything outside the orthodoxy of Judaism was heresy. We have these same problems today in Christianity, “I tend to want to talk about this, but—I will hold off for another day or another time.”
While there is little or no reference to Saul being at the crucifixion of Jesus, it is very possible that he was there. Saul who is renamed Paul by the Lord Jesus was martyred in AD 66. At the time he was rescued from the world and commissioned by the Lord to take the gospel to the Gentiles it was AD 35, the span from AD 35 to AD 66 is thirty-one years. So, I believe that Saul was about thirty years old, or the same age as Jesus, when Jesus was crucified for the sin of the world.
Saul’s hatred for Jesus and His followers was extreme, Saul was responsible for the first persecution of the saints and the dispersion of these men and women. Yet, I am reminded that Paul in the epistle to the Romans and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit says the following. Romans 8 28-29 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Saul assisted in God’s plan for the Gentile Church long before he was ordained an apostle to the Gentiles. Saul’s action of persecuting the church was ordained by God to disburse believers to do as the Messiah had commanded them to do – Matthew 28 18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go [a]therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
With the persecution over, the church at Jerusalem and various other places throughout Judea, Galilee, Samaria, and the Decapolis experienced peace. Saul, who is now Paul the apostle finds a Wide-open door to the Gentiles. Places like; Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippa, Colosse, Thessalonica, and Rome. All of these Asian areas received the apostle and his message of the Messiah who came to save the world of sin. Somewhere in this effort of God to save His created humans from the devil’s grip of death is your life. Whose hand has hold of your eternal destiny? Be it the Hand of the Messiah, then your OKAY! Be it the hand of Satan, you will DECAY!
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