We recently finished going through the book of Acts and one of the things that I really enjoyed from that book was reading the transformation of Paul’s life. When he comes into the picture he is zealous to stop this sect (later known as Christians), to the extent that he approved of them brutally being killed, but toward the end we see him giving his life for the same Jesus that he once opposed so violently, moving from a religious zealot to a man willing to give his life for others (Acts 21).
So what changed and motivated Paul? Well, obviously God, but sometimes I think we can make things more complicated than they really need to be when we introduce God into the conversation. For example, if I asked if you could pick something up and not pick it up at the same time, you would say, “that’s nonsense” and rightly so, because those two things are mutually exclusive. But when you ask, “Can GOD make a rock so heavy that he can’t pick it up?” somehow, now it becomes “deep” when really, it is still just nonsense. I think we can do the same thing when trying to understand and explain what transformed Paul.
People are motivated by a variety of things. We do things for attention, money, vengeance or power, but nothing moves us as compellingly as when we do things for love. Recently, Corinne and I took a trip to visit our son Samuel before he was deployed to the gulf. It was yet another reminder of how vulnerable we are to love and how willing we are to do things that in any other circumstances just wouldn’t make sense, until you factor in love. Why would we choose to take time off work, spend money on plane tickets to Jacksonville, North Carolina, rent a room at a much less than luxurious Ramada Inn and hang out at a Marine base instead of going somewhere along the coast, or New York? It was because we love our son. In fact, even in looking back I really couldn’t imagine going anywhere else in the world than to see my son. That time with him still fills my eyes with tears and my heart with joy.
Back to Paul; imagine trying your whole life to please God, thinking that by being good you could earn his approval but never being sure when enough was enough. I mean how good do you have to be to please God? But for all Paul’s zeal, it did not lead to a close relationship to God; instead it only led him to madness. Imagine now what it would be like to discover that the God you had been searching to find was actually searching for you! That instead of you having to reach God, He was in fact reaching for you because He loved you. Paul later would write that even if he could prophesy--had all knowledge, understood all mysteries, had faith to move mountains, gave all he had to the poor or his body to be burned--but did not have love, it would profit him nothing. You see the same thing that moves us to sacrifice for others is what moved Paul to later live a life of selfless sacrifice. It was for love.
I don’t think we really need to look for something extraordinary that moved the great apostle Paul to live the life he lived. We need only to look at what moves us so deeply. And it shouldn’t surprise us either that to change our lives God is not depending on us following a list of regulations or to pray for a certain amount of time every day, but instead has banked everything on love, asking that we would, Love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind. (Matt. 22:38)
Aptly, Jesus’ brother Jude, who later became a follower, would write and encourage us, “To keep ourselves in the love of God” Jude 21
I think that’s good advice.
