He saved me from the depths of sin!

Tuesday 3-10-15 (Houston, Texas)

Scripture reading:    Deut 13-15       Gal 1

S.  Gal 1:13 You know what I was like when I followed the Jewish religion — how I violently persecuted the Christians. I did my best to get rid of them.

Gal 1:15-16 But then something happened! For it pleased God in his kindness to choose me and call me, even before I was born! What undeserved mercy!

Gal 1:22-24 And still the Christians in the churches in Judea didn't know me personally.  All they knew was that people were saying, "The one who used to persecute us now preaches the very faith he tried to destroy!"  And they gave glory to God because of me.  NLT

O.  Paul uses his outstanding, ‘about-face conversion’ to validate the Gospel truth that he is proclaiming.  He had thought it his place to drag followers of the risen Jesus off to prison and voted for their execution.  He was determined to crush this false sect.  He thought he was doing God a favor.  But Jesus blasted him with a laser beam that knocked him to the ground and left him blind.  And while he was there laying in the dirt and unable to see his surroundings, he apparently had a vision of Jesus and clearly heard His voice.

A.  I sometimes wish I had a testimony like Nicky Cruz.  A reckless, fanatical sinner becomes a reckless, fanatical Christian in an instant.  Then all the other reckless, fanatical sinners would hear my story and they would be given hope.  But, alas, I was saved as a little child and never wandered into the pits of sin.  I cannot brag about my years as a drug addict, a gang member or a persecutor of Christ’s followers.  I was just a little kid.  But I will never forget the day it happened.  I cried a lot of tears of repentance there kneeling beside my mother at the living room couch.  The couch was blue.  If my tears were any indication of my sins, I was a pretty bad sinner at 5 years old.  And when I rose to my feet I knew something had happened to me.  I had fallen in love with Jesus.

My testimony doesn’t qualify for a book.  Except for one thing, I know I would have been a devil if God had not captured my heart when I was young.  My dad was saved when he was a teenager.  He told me that the first ones to know that he had been converted were the farm animals.  He didn’t curse them and beat them mercilessly any more.  He had met the merciful Jesus. 

P.  Precious Jesus, help me to never regret that You saved me from my sins… not just after my sins… but from my sins.   You knew the direction I was going and You headed me off at the pass.  My turn-around was just as great as the Apostle Paul and Nicky Cruz, but You got to me before I got the chance to damage the lives of so many others.  The Apostle Paul probably would have loved to go back to rescue Stephen the martyr, and many others, both men and women, that he had dragged to their execution simply for following You… but the damage was done.  He could only go forward into his new life.  

Help me, Lord, to never envy the testimonies of past wickedness… but to thank You over and over again for rescuing me before such tragedies which would have clouded my memory forever.  Oh, what mercy and what grace!  I love You, Lord.  You saved me from the depths of sin!  Hallelujah!  Amen.

Ralph