Paul: A Man of Grace and Grit (Great Lives from God's Word)

by Charles R. Swindoll

Lost people are saved while listening to a great song about Christ or while hearing a preacher or Bible teacher explaining God’s Word from a pu...

Day or night a sinner can call on the Lord Jesus Christ in faith and be saved. Let’s stop making it so complicated. As it happened with Saul, grace abounds.

Regardless of exactly when Saul was converted, he realized that the living Jesus, whom he had hated and denied his entire life, was now his Savior and Lord. It was in the dialog that followed where he also learned the Lord had been there all along.

Saul’s conversion could appear to us as having been a sudden encounter with Christ. But based on the Lord’s expression regarding his kicking back, I believe He’d been working on him for years, prodding and goading him.

Let me suggest several “goads” the Lord used to bring Saul to this place of repentance.

Three come t...

The Goad of Jesus’ Life...

Once you’ve seriously encountered Jesus there’s no escaping Him.

The Goad of Stephen’s Peaceful Death

Saul probably never fully recovered from the mental image of Stephen’s death.

The Goad of Christians’ Courageous Faith

Saul surely could not have escaped noticing the courage of his prisoners.

The believers he illegally and viciously apprehended rarely r...

Though some shrank in their faith, the vast majority stood firm in allegiance ...

God goaded and prodded the stubborn pride of that Pharisaic ox.

As always, God won.

Like Saul, we’re no match for God. Checkmate is inevitable. It’s no game either. God will do whatever it takes to bring us to a point of absolute dependence on Him. He will relentlessly, patiently, faithfully goad until we finally and willingly submit to Him.

Don’t wait for a storm. By then it may be too late. Settle it today on your knees. Give Him complete control. Stop your own Damascus Road journey today. Like Saul, surrender. And like Saul, you’ll never regret it.

I don’t understand all the reasons we suffer for the Name. But I’m convinced of this: It is part of God’s sovereign plan to prepare us to be His instruments of grace to a harsh and desperate world. Clearly, that was God’s plan for Saul.

Each painful, awful ordeal brought him to his knees, turning him into a deeper man of grace, humbly committed to following his Savior’s lead.

Ananias needed to know that part of God’s plan. It not only gave the message authenticity, it steeled him to take a memorable step of heroic faith.

Ananias has been called one of the forgotten heroes of the faith. Indeed he is. There are countless numbers of them serving Christ behind the scenes the world over.

“And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight, and he arose and was baptized. And he took food and was strengthened” (v. 18). The change was instantaneous. He regained his sight. When God performs a miracle there are two undeniable effects. It is immediate. And it is permanent.

Luke writes, “Now for several days he was with the disciples who were in Damascus. And immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’” Like a racehorse, Saul broke out of the gate and boldly proclaimed Christ as Lord in the synagogues. The response was electrifying: “And all those hearing continued to be amazed, and were saying, “Is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on this name, and who had come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?’ ” (Acts 9:21).

the people who heard it were amazed. The Greek text uses the term from which we get the word “ecstatic.” They responded with nothing short of ecstatic astonishment at the swift reversal in the man’s life.

“But Saul kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived at Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 9:22).

Not only did Saul preach about Christ, he preached with remarkable skill.

Saul’s sermons were skillfully woven together, seamlessly delivered with compelling logic—all signs of a gifted expositor.

Word by word, sentence by sentence, point by point, Saul walked his listeners through the powerful passages of the Old Testament Scriptures, including the writings of the prophets, presenting an air-tight case for believing in Christ as their promised Messiah. Until Saul made his case, most had never made that connection. What a convincing communicator!

SOME SURPRISING ELEMENTS OF GOD’S WILL

Surprises are always part of God’s leading.

If you’re waiting on God to fill in all the shading in your picture, you will never take the first step in obeying His will.

Surprises always intensify our need for faith.

But when your faith kicks in gear, none of those impulses will control you.

Faith says, “I can do this. I trust you, Lord. I don’t understand everything, but I trust you completely. Let’s do it.”

Be careful about feeling too settled where you are—physically, emotionally, spiritually, or geographically.

If the Lord wants you to move, I strongly suggest you cooperate, regardless of the risks. If He leads you to change, then change. Surprises from God always intensify our need for faith.

Stepping out in faith always brings clarificatio...

Obedience always stimulates growth.

Obeying God drives the roots of your faith much deeper.

We’re stretched emotionally, often physically, but most importantly, spiritually.

Scriptures reveals that those God used greatly were often prepared for those exploits during periods of solitude, quietness, and obscurity.

Moses.

David.

Joseph.

Elijah.

John the Baptist.

That is precisely why superficiality is the curse of our age. Our shallow lives offer no promise for lasting impact.

Our problem is that we are blinded in our perspective. We see ourselves as resourceful, talented, articulate, responsible, efficient. So why pause? Why take a break? We have important matters to attend to, meetings to hold, numbers to crunch, programs to launch, and children to rear and on and on

Everything’s fine . . . until the well runs dry. At that point, we start to “gut it out.” We continue to run on empty until finally our lives fracture deep within. At that point we begin to sputter, clog and chunk, and finally grind to a complete stop.