Daily Devotion – September 29, 2020 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison
Philippians 3:4b-14
3:4b If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more:
3:5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;
3:6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
3:7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.
3:8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
3:9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
3:10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death,
3:11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
3:12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
3:13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
3:14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Saul/Paul. He was pretty brazen. I just love that old novel by Taylor Caldwell, Great Lion of God, about Saul/Paul before and after his Damascus conversion. In it we meet the zealous Jewish church leader who can accomplish almost anything, and who, in his fervent desire to be faithful to Yahweh, destroys every foreign object and influence that would taint the faith he loves. Especially Christ and his followers.
Saul has it all – the right faith formation, education, connections, and world experience. He becomes one of the most successful persecutors of Christians. God is watching his true excellence and capabilities and thinks, “Here’s a guy I need IN my church, not OUT of my church.” So Jesus appears to him while he is riding toward Damascus to arrest more Christians. He is thrown from his horse and blinded by the encounter with Christ’s voice. He is basically emptied out and lying on the road. Someone houses him for three days while he considers what is important to him and what this vision means.
He had everything. Then suddenly he had nothing. And then someone restored his sight and he had a chance to be and do whatever his new calling asked of him. He had been a most faithful Jew, and God was now giving him something wonderful to turn his talents toward: the Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus. Imagine the turning that this involved. Imagine all those who might have quaked in fear to see him – until they realized he had given up the old calling for the job of apostle of Jesus. Imagine how his conversion itself was seen by others and how that huge change witnessed to the power of Jesus.
Saul, this fine Jew with nothing but zeal for the Lord, had been upended on the road, spoken to by Jesus, and given a new and different life by God. He said yes! So I put it to you: when you are suddenly thrust into a new world with new circumstances different from what you have known before, consider that it might be God putting you into a conversion circumstance. Listen for God’s voice. Take it as an opportunity – and see what God has in store.
Gracious God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving us challenges that we might say yes to. Give us courage to be emptied and offered a life in your service. Amen.
