Turnabout

Philippians 4:7 – “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.”

The Apostle Paul is an interesting study in contrasts.  Here is one who was steeped in the religion of the Jews – a rising star on the Sanhedrin – filled with zeal in his defense of the Torah and the Talmud.  Here was one who was willing to go the extra mile to do the Will of God, or so he thought.  He participated in the stoning of Stephen. He traveled from city to city putting in jail all who followed the “false” sect of the Nazarene.  His motives were pure.  His methods were cruel.  His cause was just.  But He was wrong – dead wrong.

Here in the epistle to the Philippians, he tells us how he, above all others, had wherewith to boast.  He gives us some insight into his religious qualifications.  In Acts 22:3 he tells us he was “brought up in this city (Jerusalem) at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God.”  Gamaliel was a very high and powerful man on the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious court.  And Paul, Saul at the time, was his protégé.  Saul was also present when Stephen, the impressive young deacon of the Jerusalem church, railed against the Jews and was stoned to death.  Don’t you imagine the spirit of God present in Stephen at his death spoke volumes to this young zealot for the Jewish faith? 

But in spite of all his religion, sincere though he was, the high sheriff of heaven, the blessed Holy Spirit of God met Saul in the middle of the road one day and arrested his soul.  It was an encounter that Saul never got over.  Jesus spoke to him in person and witnessed to Him of the saving grace of God, and Saul yielded himself to His control.  God changed him that day from a persecutor of the church to a preacher of the gospel. 

Turnabout

I was lost and undone and wandering in sin,

And Satan controlled all my thoughts.

I was going through life seeking favor of men

By scheming with men-pleasing plots.

I was gripped by desire to gain awesome wealth,

To amass great fortune and fame,

And determined myself by hook or by stealth

To attain for myself a great name.

I had busied myself doing unseemly acts

To those I considered extreme,

Putting in prison with little or no facts

All who thought Jesus supreme.

This was the quickest way I could find

To elevate my name on high –

Exalt my career over peers of same mind

And to fortune and fame to fly.

Then on the road to accomplish my task,

I was arrested by Jesus above,

And when certain things of my soul He did ask,

I was introduced to His great love.

I commenced to undo all the evil I’d done

To those who in prison I’d hurled.

I preached the great love of God’s Holy Son

To a lost and dying world.

© 2006 Paul Stultz

Quote - "And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." - The Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 4:18

"Lord, Thank you for the Apostle Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles. Thank you Lord, that you save old sinners - even religious old sinners. Help us to follow the example Paul set for us in the scriptures. Amen."