Let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the Good News I preached to you before. You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it. It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place. I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him. For I am the least of all the apostles. In fact, I’m not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God’s church. But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on me—and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it was not I but God who was working through me by his grace. So it makes no difference whether I preach or they preach, for we all preach the same message you have already believed. 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
There are some settled principles in life upon which
you can count; one of those is hindsight.
For the early part of Saul’s life, he had a settled conviction that the
followers of Jesus were misguided (at least) and (at worst) evil, cultish devils,
and they had to be stopped. Saul did his
best to accomplish that goal, until one day amid his frenzied push to rid the
earth of any Christianity, he met their namesake on the road to Damascus. Saul got a name-change to Paul; more
importantly he got a heart-change from hard to compassionate, and a mind-change
from hatred to accepting the love of God.
In our hindsight we see this as that whatever I am now Paul meant when he wrote to the Corinthians. He was what God made of him.
You have probably experienced that in your life, and
hopefully in your walk with Christ. As I
look back on my life, ministry, relationships, and development as a human
being, I’m more convinced of seeing the hand of God guiding me into whatever I am now. Somehow
that makes some of the hardships endured in this process we call life,
circumstances, joys, and strength to endure with joy, an absolute amazement to
me.
Paul mentioned one thing to the Corinthian believers
that used to make me tremble. He pointed
to their faith as what they believed when he first preached the Gospel to them,
and then wrote:
You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it. It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you-unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place.
Honestly, what used to worry me about that is the
fear of believing something that isn’t true, staking my life and eternity on a
fairy tale, and having it blow up in the end.
And so, the question that gets begged is:
Russell, why doesn’t it still worry you?
And the answer is Paul’s whatever I am now. Paul could
look back at every step of his journey in Christ and sense the guiding hand of
that which is bigger, and outside of himself.
He had experienced the power of God moving his life and destiny. And, at this point, doubt in the garden of
his life had been treated with the weed and feed of faith.
When dealing with the weeds of doubt becomes your
daily discipline of strengthening your faith with God’s Word, prayer, and
submission to God’s will, you will not have a weak faith, and that makes for a
strong warrior-tool in God’s hands.
For You Today
Fear knocked at the door.
Faith answered. No one was there.
You
chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!
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