Read with Me
1 Timothy 1:12-14 (HCSB)
I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, appointing me to the ministry—one who was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man. But I received mercy because I acted out of ignorance in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord overflowed, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
Listen with Me
In encouraging Timothy to look forward, Paul can’t help but look back at the distance God had brought him. Paul had become a pillar of God’s Church, not because he was such a wonderful person when God found him. He was not, as he himself freely admitted.
At the time Paul turned to God, he was a blasphemer against Him, refusing to accept what He had done through Jesus because it went against his preconceived notions of who God is and what He would do. In his pride and arrogance, Paul believed that he knew God better than most others, so he set himself up as a judge, an arbiter of absolute truth.
That pride led him to persecute God’s people, to inflicting violence on those who would not turn away from the truth as it is in Jesus. In his zeal to be holy, Paul had become the worst sinner imaginable.
Paul’s purpose in looking back was not to beat himself up over and over again for who he had been in his ignorance of the truth. He knew that no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many years he strived to do good, he could never erase a single sin, he could never repair a single heart he had broken or restore a single family he had torn apart.
Instead, he looked back to remember and to be thankful for how far God had brought him from those dark days. He never took credit for the transformation he had undergone. He knew very well that had he been left to his own devices, his trajectory would have continued downward, not upward.
Instead, he always credited God’s grace for reaching out to him, even while he was lost, and for replacing his pride with faith, and his violence with agape love. It was only after Paul was completely transformed that God was able to call him into service, so that he could use that remarkable testimony to help other sinners, both sinners who were worse than he had been and those who were not nearly as bad, to find the path that leads to eternal life in Jesus.
Pray with Me
Father, thank you for this reminder. I, too, have a story of sin, repentance, transformation and calling that I need to share with those around me who don’t yet know You and Your saving grace. It is so easy to revert to talking theological realities with those we are trying to reach with the gospel. But the real power is not in what we believe or what we have been taught. It is in what we have experienced, the genuine transformation that can only come through repentance, belief in Jesus, and through serving You wholeheartedly. It is our testimony that breathes life into our theology, not the other way around. Lord, help me to work differently from now on, to lead with my testimony of Your grace and love that led to my salvation and transformation. Amen.