Identity: Paul

You may have noticed that Fridays this month have been dedicated to people of the Bible. They can be exasperating and encouraging people, when I look back at these folks: Moses, Gideon, Lydia, Jonah and now Paul. What seems so obvious now is that God saw these people very differently form what they see of themselves. How true that is for me as well, I guess.

Saul Carries out his Purpose

We know that Paul was known as Saul before his road to Damascus blinding-light experience. He was a tentmaker. He was also known as a persecutor of the followers of Jesus. Following the death of Stephen (Acts 8:1-3), he rampaged through the church and imprisoned many men and women, followers of Jesus. Interestingly, he went to the high priest and asked for permission to continue taking prisoners, even outside his usual stomping ground. Why was he doing this?

Purpose under God’s Authority

What we see is a man fulfilling his purpose outside of God’s authority. Paul’s purpose was to bring people to know God, and he thought that this Jesus and his followers were undermining God by saying that Jesus was God incarnate. So, he saw it as a threat and wanted to eliminate this threat. But he was working outside the authority of God. We see this also in Moses. His purpose to free the Israelites was in him even before his formal ‘calling’ from the burning bush. When he was young, he was not exposed to the God of his ancestors. Instead having been raised among Egyptians, this lack of a relationship with God lead him to kill an Egyptian that was beating a fellow Israelite. At that time he was outside of God, even though he was fulfilling his God-given purpose, he was unable to go about it in a right and successful way. Without God, Moses would not have succeeded in freeing the Israelites from bondage, we would not be able to fulfill his purpose.

Saul to Paul

Once Paul had a personal encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, once Moses had a personal encounter with God in the burning bush, their hearts were toward God’s plan, they were empowered by the Holy Spirit to fulfill their purpose and equipped to do the job with the character of Christ. Paul’s mission from before knowing Christ and after having begun a personal relationship with Him was the same. The way he carried it out became more powerful and more effective having known the Lord.

Paul’s zeal for God was what drove him to be so ruthless and then to be so instrumental in the spread of the Gospel. The character of Paul was radically changed and therefore the way in which he went about carrying out his purpose also changed. By personally knowing Jesus Christ, he understood who he was in Christ, his identity. Paul worked as hard for God before his blinding-light experience as he did after, but the result of the purpose came in line with God’s ultimate plan only upon knowing Him.

Power in the Holy Spirit

Our purpose has likely been steady through our lives, even before a personal encounter with the Living God. But the realization, the making-real, of our purpose and the efficacy and power of our efforts is increased and the path corrected once we encounter Jesus. And it happens again, increase in power and a course correction (hopefully minor) every time we draw near, seek Him, learn more and become more Christ-like. Paul required a serious course correction to fall in line with God’s plan, just as Jonah did. The Holy Spirit is with us every step and will most certainly guide us and empower us, ‘for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose’ (Philippians 2:13). We need to take a step of faith to fulfill this purpose and know that it is good, and God will keep us on track to fulfill it. Let us pray that God’s purpose in us be made known and fulfilled more powerfully than ever!

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