Good morning.
Paul revealed much of his personality through his writings. He actually loved to talk about himself, but to be fair he sometimes used it to bring a point over and also to help his readers to identify with him in certain aspects he had learned through his experiences. In the next few messages we are going to look at these examples so we can mirror ourselves in Paul’s life. Through that we will see why he has been who he was in Christ and how we can be the same.
The Lord looks at personalities, attitudes and interests when He chooses instruments for His purposes. Paul had always been an ambitious man. From very young he had fulfilled ambitions – the ambition to be educated, to be a businessman (a tentmaker), to have a social status (being a Pharisee), and so on. He was busy fulfilling his ambition to purify Israel from this new cult that had hit the nation through this teacher Jesus, when he had an encounter with this very Jesus. This actually changed his ambition significantly as we see in Romans 15:20: “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation.”
From these very words of Paul we can see his personality. His nature wanted him to do things in a new way, the way nobody else had ever done it. Some might see it as pride, but it is never for us to judge. The Lord utilized this nature of his and used him in the things that he actually enjoyed, even though he would have had his critics. Paul’s ambition made him the ideal person to take the gospel to the non Jews, the heathen. He would not have been happy to just work along with the other apostles and the church. All his life Paul had greater things in mind, and the Lord used this nature of his to accomplish the greater things He had in mind.
What is your nature like? What are your interests? Maybe there is a group of people within your field of interest that would never be reached if you do not do anything about it. Maybe what you are interested in is considered unacceptable by the religious people of today and you fear criticism.
Some years ago, during a time when motorcyclists were unacceptable by decent society, there was a young man, René Changuin. He was as wild as you can get and madly in love with motorcycles. He would wheelie his bike (riding his bike on the rear wheel) up and down the street and drove the residents mad, until one day he nearly killed himself. He then had an encounter with Jesus, but was definitely not material for a suit and formal church. The Lord used him to build up an international organisation of bikers (motorcyclists) that reach out to bikers – the Christian Motorcyclists Association. They attend secular bike rallies, invite secular bikers to their own rallies, arrange big bike breakfast runs, go into the bars and pubs to share the gospel with the bikers and have bikers’ church where that part of society will feel welcome.
What is your interest and personality? What is deep inside of you that really interest you before you put on your religious mask to impress the people? Maybe it is not so acceptable by your fellow church members, but still involves people that need to be reached with the gospel. Have these people been reached? Maybe you can hear from the Holy Spirit how you can go about reaching these fellow fans.
We need to be careful not to put the Lord in a box. Sin is wide spread and Christians are scared to touch certain areas where sin is rife, but if the Lord cannot find people brave enough to enter such areas of sin, how would the people involved with those activities be reached? What the religious people think is not what is important, but what the Lord thinks.
Lord, please show me what it is I am best at and then show me how I can reach those people involved.
Thank you Lord that your Word went out from your mouth, via your servant’s pen, and it will not return to you empty, but will accomplish what you desire and achieve the purpose for which you sent it.
Please pass this on if you think others may benefit by it.
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