A Pharisee of the
highest order.
Act_26:5 Which knew me from the beginning, if they
would testify, that after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a
Pharisee.
Born a Jew. Blameless in his religion.
Php 3:5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the
law, a Pharisee;
Php 3:6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church;
touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
How many people of
ALL religions right NOW upon our earth are persecuting Christ followers because
they believe their own religion demands they do this?
Act 9:1 And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and
slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,
Act 9:2 And desired of him letters to Damascus to the
synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women,
he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.
How many people
curse Christ followers and wish them all dead? If various reports in the news
and such are to be believed… a lot.
There are A LOT of
zealous people who believe whole heartedly in their religion just as Paul
believed in His and Paul was CHOSEN by God, visited by a risen SAVIOR!
We cannot forget it
was a Christ-follower PERSECUTOR that Jesus chose personally to be one of His
greatest apostles.
Gal_1:1 Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by
man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)
Just how incredibly
SHOCKING it had to be for one who so zealously persecuted Christ followers to
comprehend that he had NOT been doing the will of God in his persecutions. That NONE who were persecuting them were doing
God's will. They THOUGHT they were doing the will of God, they truly believed
they were doing the will of God. They weren't persecuting people for the
pleasure of it, they weren't hunting them down, they weren't killing them for
the joy of it. They - at least Paul- was only happy in the belief he was doing
God's will. He would have kept on zealously persecuting all Christ followers
and His heart was pure of the guilt of it because He truly BELIEVED it was
God's will He was doing and THAT is why our Savior chose Paul, because He KNEW
all Paul truly wanted to do was the will of GOD. When shown the error of his
ways Paul quickly changed! Paul wasted NO time in doing a complete turn around
all because His hearts desire was GOD'S WILL, not his own! Had he found joy in the hurting and killing
of people he could not have been used by God at all. If Paul had been zealous
for the sake of being zealous, he couldn't have been used by God. God's true Will- THIS IS WHAT PAUL
DESIRED.
Often we will be
shown by our God the error of our ways and it is up to us to choose God's will
over our own, over even a way of life that has been ours since birth.
God's WILL.
Is this our desire?
Or are we trying to
get God to bend to our will?
People do that all
the time. They want God to yield to their sinful desires so they can claim to
worship and honor Him and His will but all the while indulge in their own
lusts. People want their lusts to be
God's will. People want God to be accepting of ALL things in us because we are
born the way we are- flawed with very horrendous flaws. Rather than believe we can be born with flaws
we would have God allowing these flaws mean His acceptance of them. We don't want to accept that SIN has created
these flaws. To accept that our flaws from birth are sin created- their origin
being sin- would mean we need to seek forgiveness for them and we don't want to
do that. We want to believe that God accepts our sins and we do not need to ask
forgiveness for what He accepts.
Originally created
to be perfect in God's love, we became born of sinful parents. We inherited the
tendencies to sin and sin and sin. The personal sin tendency you have doesn't
matter- your tendencies may be completely different from mine- what matters is they are sin. We've come to believe that children can
inherit addictive tendencies from their parents- drs, scientists, specialists
of all sorts in various studies have said children of alcoholics are more
likely to become alcoholics and we believe them. A lot of our sinful tendencies do seem to be
passed on down the line, but not all of them. We all have sin tendencies unique
to us as individuals. You might have a,
b, c, d, e, f and g sin tendencies while I might have b, d, f, I, k, m sin
tendencies. There can be overlaps or completely different tendencies. I may have a dozen and you may only have
two. What I'm saying is we are truly all
born with the tendencies towards sin. In what people say is my dna I might be
programed with a desire for excessive amounts of physical lust, just because
that is in MY genetic make up doesn't make it any less of a sin if I act upon
that lust. By saying it's in my blood we
are trying to EXCUSE our sinful ways and make them acceptable, we do it ALL the
time.
We desire our WILLS
be done, not God's will and God knows this! We can't hide it from God!
Paul desired God's
will be done, NOT HIS own will. PAUL warred against his sin tendencies, Paul
fought in the war and we are ALL call to fight this fight- this very personal
fight! You cannot war anyone else's personal battle against their own sin
tendencies. We are NOT to judge, we are
to LOVE and let GOD reveal the sin. We have to reveal God's LOVE in meeting the
NEEDS of all when we recognize there is a need to be met.
If we are called to
a path that asks us to sacrifice all personal pleasure, if we are called to a
path that askes us to give up the sins that so easily beset us, that is what we
are called to.
Every single one of
us with our own personal sins are called to forsake them by God. You might think your personal sin is a harder
one to give up, a greater sacrifice to make, but only God knows the depths of
agony people go through as they fight in this spiritual war against the flesh.
We are not to judge anyone's eternal life, not a single person's! We are to LOVE.
Please God - YOUR
WILL BE DONE!
In the name of Your
Son, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!
Amen.
