--SALVATION ~~ --
Before he encountered Christ, Paul had been somewhat of a hero among the Pharisees....
Blue-blooded and wild-eyed, this young zealot was hell-bent on keeping the kingdom pure--and that meant keeping the Chrisitans out. He marched through the countryside like a general demanding that backslidden Jews salute the flag of the motherland or kiss their family and hopes good-bye.
All this came to a halt, however, on the shoulder of a highway...That's when someone slammed on the stadium lights, and he heard 'the voice'.
When he found out whose voice it was, his jaw hit the ground, and his body followed. He braced himself for the worst. He knew it was all over...He prayed that death would be quick and painless.
But all he got was silence and the first of a lifetime of surprises.
He ended up bewildered and befuddled in a borrowed bedroom. God left him there a few days with scales on his eyes so thick that the only direction he could look was inside himself. And he didn't like what he saw.
He saw himself for what he really was--to to use his own words,...
'the worst of sinners.'...Alone in the room with his sins on his conscience and blood on his hands, he asked to be cleansed.
...The legalist Saul was buried, and the liberator Paul was born.
He was never the same afterwards. And neither was the world...
The message is gripping: Show a man his failures without Jesus, and the result will be found in the roadside gutter. Give a man religion without reminding him of his filth, and the result wil be arrogance in a three-piece suit. But get the two in the same heart--get sin to meet Savior and Savior to meet sin--and the result just might be another Pharisee turned preacher who sets the world on fire. ~~
---
Study Guide1)What does Saul's conversion teach you about God?
2)What is the most mysterious thing to you about salvation?
