Page 48 - Livin Light Issue 81

Monday July 24 - Causing confusion
Saul... baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah. Acts 9:22
“Will the real Cyril Bloggs please stand up?” We sometimes ask something like that when we’re confused about who a person in the public eye, or someone we know, really is. We always thought they were honest or nice and now we’ve heard they're corrupt or thoroughly nasty. Who are they really? The Jews in Damascus were confused about Saul. His reputation was of ugly, aggressive opposition to Jesus’ followers. Yet here he was, promoting the very message he’d come to silence. Would the real Saul please stand up?
The real Saul began to be seen. His conversion to Christ was no flash in the pan. Over time, he grew increasingly formidable as a preacher of Jesus as the Messiah. Given his background (Philippians 3:4-6) he knew the Jewish scriptures and theology backwards! Now he was using them to ‘prove’ that Jesus was the one they'd expected to come, the Messiah who would set them free. He didn’t just claim it, he convincingly argued it, using his knowledge to lead people to faith. Ultimately we can’t argue people into faith. The Holy Spirit has to open their eyes. Yet we should do all we can to persuade people that Jesus is God’s Messiah. Perhaps we feel we couldn’t do that; we're not clever like Saul. But, as with Saul, the greatest argument of all is the evidence of a changed life, even if initially it causes some confusion!
Transforming God, may my life provoke questions in others today, which could enable me to speak of Jesus. Amen.
Tuesday July 25 - Running away
...his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an
opening in the wall. Acts 9:25
What happened next was a surprise and niggled Saul for some time. Verse 22 says Paul ‘grew more and more powerful’. His preaching was obviously having some success. That provoked opposition and the next thing we hear about is his friends arranging his escape, through a window in the city wall under cover of darkness, to avoid arrest.
However wise this was, I think it rankled with Saul. Writing later he rapidly lists a number of tough ill-treatments he’d experienced for Christ. But when he mentions this incident he lingers over it (2 Corinthians 11:22-33). Why so? Because it was his apprenticeship in suffering? Perhaps also because it went against the grain of his personality. He was no coward, no escape artist. He’d want to stay and fight (see Acts 19:30). Furthermore, the Romans used to award a crown – the crown of the wall – to the first soldier over the wall into a city under siege. Ironically, although the messenger of the world’s Messiah,
Saul’s ‘crown’ is not for going over the wall into the city but out of it!
Saul’s move gives an insight into how Christ operates. At Calvary he didn’t engage in a blatant attack but disarmed his enemies by embracing weakness. We don’t win battles for God with our fists, our money, or our clever strategies, but, strangely, by carrying the cross, as Saul did here. We, like Saul, have to learn to think Jesus’ way.
Powerful God, help me to see things Christ’s way today. Amen.
PRAYER FOR TODAY
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PRAYER FOR TODAY