Church & Ministries
How Should the Church Love a Gay Couple? (Part 3 - Final)
Pastor Duke Taber will be the first to let you know that his small congregation ...
Opinion
To Pastors: The Problem of Shifting Treasure in Your Heart
After the Sunday morning service he asked if he could make an appointment with ...
Column
Catacomb Christianity and Cathedral Christianity
The catacombs are the legacy of a tiny persecuted band of believers. The ...
Theology
Does Being Totally Depraved Mean We're Always Sinning No Matter What?
When you become a Christian the depravity and the disinclination to do what is ...
"I have appeared unto thee for this purpose." Acts 26:16
The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was no passing emotion, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him, and he says, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." Our Lord said, in effect, to Paul - Your whole life is to be overmastered by Me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but Mine. "I have chosen him."
When we are born again we all have visions, if we are spiritual at all, of what Jesus wants us to be, and the great thing is to learn not to be disobedient to the vision, not to say that it cannot be attained. It is not sufficient to know that God has redeemed the world, and to know that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did effectual in me; I must have the basis of a personal relationship to Him. Paul was not given a message or a doctrine to proclaim, he was brought into a vivid, personal, overmastering relationship to Jesus Christ. Verse 16 is immensely commanding - "to make thee a minister and a witness." There is nothing there apart from the personal relationship. Paul was devoted to a Person not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ's, he saw nothing else, he lived for nothing else. "For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified."
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