Boldness

As I read the scripture today about the Apostle Paul, it brought back to mind how I first responded to people who tried to share the hope of Jesus Christ with me.  I was a mocker.  The bible tells us that Paul was a mocker and murderer of the early Christians. Paul later wrote that the early churches in Israel had only know him as, "The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." And yet later, they praised God because of him...because of his boldness AFTER he came to believe.  After he believed, he lived for Christ and Christ lived in him.

	The Indwelling Christ "And they praised God because of me." (Galatians 1:24)   One of the greatest doctrines of the Christian faith is the amazing truth that the Lord Jesus Christ indwells each believer, through His Holy Spirit. "Christ lives in me," said the apostle Paul (Galatians 2:20) and, since that was true experientially as well as doctrinally, he could invite people to see Christ and hear Christ and follow Christ by seeing and hearing and following him. This might seem incredibly arrogant if it were not real.   He could say, for example, that "it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me" (Galatians 1:15-16). And he could say, as in today's verse, that those who heard him "glorified God in me." He also commanded, "Whatever you have learned, or received, or heard, or seen in me, do: and the God of peace will be with you." (Philippians 4:9).   The Lord could say to His disciples, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9), and no one thinks it inappropriate, because He fully manifested the heavenly Father in word and deed. Similarly, Paul said that "the truth of Christ is in me" and referred to "Christ speaking in me" (2 Corinthians 11:10; 13:3), noting that Christ was "at work in my ministry toward the Gentiles" (Galatians 2:8).   This was not boasting, for Paul acknowledged that "in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing" (Romans 7:18). Still, he was bold to exhort, "Be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1).   Now the same Spirit of Christ who dwelt in Paul also indwells all true Christians, for "if any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ" (Romans 8:9). We should be able to say with Paul, in practice as well as theory, that "Christ lives in me."   Days of Praise Devotional - Henry M Morris www.icr.org