Note: the blogs this week come from the writer’s inability to sleep in the early morning hours Monday. He suddenly sensed the Holy Spirit’s inspiration in the arrival of the words recorded. It cleared his mind and removed stress. If anyone can profit by what is written, Praise Jesus Christ.
By recording examples of Bible heroes, and leaving Scripture for our instruction, Jesus encourages us to become more informed about God and to associate with Christians whose lives challenge us to grow beyond ourselves. He wants us to speak with, listen to and question those whose knowledge of God and experience in faith are broader and deeper than ours. That necessarily means we limit the time spent in relationships that mostly remind us of our past and keep us there, strait-jacketed inside the limitations it imposed. True, there we find comfort levels of speech, subjects and habits, but they cannot challenge us to grow beyond to Christ’s more excellent ways. Jesus always calls us from lesser to greater spiritual depths; from what we have allowed ourselves to become to what his power can make us, given the chance. Sometime in AD 61, 26 years after Jesus opened Paul’s mind by closing his eyes, the apostle reviewed his experience with the Master. Replete with honor Paul may have been; much he had learned and whatever success he enjoyed as an apostle. Replete with honors he may have been. Learned as any writer of sacred scripture he certainly was. And successful as any apostle he had become. He nevertheless viewed it all as a beginning. He realized that the transformation he had experienced in Christ’s service had only begun to mature him. Towards that greater maturity he continued to grow. The best that Jesus had for Paul AWAITED him. Paul always lived each day for the future, where God’s BEST awaits. We would profit by following his example, one of the most challenging and rewarding in scripture. –End Part II-
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