Hey What Happens Next?

Now that I have found out what it means to be born again, what do I do next? First of all, I would like to share with you about a man who truly had a transformation so there won’t be any confusion about a true born again experience. His name is Paul. He was not always called Paul, but Saul. He was a Jew, born in Tarsus, and he was a very religious man – a strict Pharisee. He set at the feet of a man called Gamliel, a well-known teacher, who knew about the covenant made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and was an expert in the law given by God to Moses. If you sat under him, you were considered a well prepared student. There was no doubt you knew the laws of Moses, and knew how to apply them to your life. But Saul (Paul) had a problem.  What problem would that be you ask?

Saul’s problem was those Christians that came on the scene when Jesus arrived.  The Sanhedrin, the religious zealots of that day, had Jesus put to death.  After all, that should have taken care of all that pesky doctrine Jesus introduced, that they were so against, right? Well not hardly!   It was worse!  Those Christian were just multiplying like crazy.  Right before Jesus’ ascension, he told the disciples to go to an upper room and wait for the Holy Spirit to arrive.  That day was called the day of Pentecost. There ended up being 120 people that obeyed Jesus, and they were born again; and Peter stood up to preach about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, and “bang” 3,000 were added to that 120 in one day.

So you see, to Saul and the religious groups of his day, things were completely out of control.  What was Saul to do? He already had been hauling people out of their homes in Jerusalem, and had them put in prison and put to death. Fast forwarding a little bit, after his conversion, when Paul was on his way to Rome, he stood before King Agrippa and gave witness to his former deeds he had done to the Christians.  According to Acts 26:10, “he punished them in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme, and was exceedingly mad against them, and persecuted them even unto strange cities”.  Stephen was one of them. It was said that he had consented to the death of Stephen, a man full of faith and power.   They stoned him to death, but not before they heard the story expounded by Stephen from the time of Abraham up until the death of Jesus. It was said In Acts 6:10, “that they could not resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake (spoke)”.  Did Saul learn from this experience that he seemingly had no control over and give it rest?  (Hey, like lighten up Saul)

Not hardly!  Saul believed it was his religious duty and thought he was doing God a favor. So what does he do?  He gets letters from the Chief Priests to extend his cruel treatment into Damascus to bring them back to Jerusalem to be placed in prison. What happens next is far from Saul’s plans or agenda. He runs straight into the one and only, and he would never be the same.

Saul took several others, and by horseback he journeyed to Damascus with such zeal, with purpose, still angry about these so called Christians; but something happened.  Something that he would have never dreamed would happen. Acts 9:3 “And as he journeyed he came near to Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul “why persecuteth thou me?”  And he said, who art thou, Lord? And Jesus said whom thou persecutest: It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.  And he trembling and astonished, said Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?  And Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do”.  Hey, did Jesus say to Saul what you must do? Wow!  What just happened?  You mean this angry man that was bound and determined to kill these Christians changed his mind?  I’ll tell you what just happened. He met the savior, the redeemer of all mankind, this sweet Jesus; and it changed Saul in a flash. That is when Saul was no longer Saul.  His name was changed to Paul. That day this angry man was led by the hand by the men that were with him like a little puppy.  You see Saul was blinded by that awesome light that came from Jesus. They led him into the city where he would receive other instructions from the Lord through Ananias, and at the same time Saul had a vision of this man coming to him. By the way, this man Ananias was in no hurry to meet this man called Saul who had been persecuting the Church.  Talking about taking a risk, Ananias was immediately questioning Jesus, and reminding Him of the havoc this man Saul was determined to bring to all the Christians everywhere.  But in Acts 9:15 the Lord told Ananias that Saul was a chosen vessel to take His name to the Gentiles, and the kings, and the children of Israel. Reluctantly, I am sure Ananias went to Saul and laid his hands on him and commanded his sight to return, and Saul received the Holy Spirit.  Well what did Saul do next?

What do you think happened next? Did Saul cross his arms and sit idly by doing nothing, like most Christian today?  He was told to take the name of Jesus to the Gentiles, the kings, and the children of Israel, but did he say, “I know what he told me to do, but when do I act upon this great commission”?  Did he need a choir and a personal group of friends pumping him up or getting him excited about this call? No, in Acts 9:19-20, after a few days with the other disciples in Damascus, Paul Immediately went and began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God”.  “Oh Boy”! “I can hear the voices clamoring now.  Has this man lost his mind”?  Wasn’t he just recently dragging people out of the synagogues and homes, arresting, persecuting, and imprisoning Christians?” Well yeah! I can see people in such a state of confusion that it took a while for their brain to catch up with the news.  Not to speak of the betrayal and the humiliation the Chief Priest and Pharisees would experience, after the news traveled back to them.  If Saul lived in our day don’t you know that Saul’s radical change would be on the front page of the news?  “Maybe the column would read like this, “Saul, a strict Pharisee and well know member of the Jewish Council, has lost his mind. Several days previous he went to Damascus to have Christians brought back to Jerusalem to stand trial for leaving the law and spreading the teachings of Jesus, to now being in the synagogues in Damascus proclaiming Jesus. Now what do you think happened to Saul?  Is he now facing the same treatment that he doled out to those he was tracking down?  You bet! I can see the Jewish council drawing up papers and sending them out for his arrest. Wow!  That religious bunch must have been scrambling to get it done before Saul could spread this crazy story of his conversion.  I can imagine them in my mind, pulling out their hair, and snarling, and gritting their teeth.

I would say Saul had a big problem. What do you think about his radical change? Well, you must understand that Saul, now Paul, only knew about the Law of Moses and was serving God according to the letter of that law.  It was a law of sin and death, and which Paul wrote later in the Book of Romans chapter 8:2 – “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Paul was actually in darkness, and thought he was obeying God: but how did he get to the place of his justification of killing another person over it.  The Ten Commandments clearly said thou shall not kill.  What or who convinced Paul that he had the right to do what he was doing in the first place. I’ll tell you how.  When men take God’s word and twist it to say what they want it to say.  Just like today in the churches, we are getting far away from the true gospel. Many are teaching that it is okay to sin because we are under grace.  Paul said God forbid that we should continual to live in sin, and say we are saved. That is what he was saying when the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.  What was the law of the Spirit of life? It is the law of love and grace to all mankind, paid for by the blood of Christ Jesus. I don’t know about you, but thank God for this new plan.  I much rather live under grace and be under this new love law.

Besides Jesus, Paul became the most precious gift to the body of Christ. He wrote most of the New Testament and received it though the Spirit by revelation, which come to be called the Pauline Revelations.  What the Lord revealed to him tells us who we are in Christ, what Christ did for us, and how to live for him in such detail that there is no way this New Covenant could be denied or misunderstood.  If you and I study the Bible, especially the New Testament, we will clearly see the difference between the law and grace.  Living under the law of sin and death was an arduous and almost impossible way to serve the Lord. But without the law, as Paul said, you wouldn’t know that sin existed. Before the law, man could murder another man and wreak havoc in the world without having any kind of conviction or paying a price for his wrong doing.

I personally thank God for this New Covenant that has placed me under His marvelous Grace, which I will continue to write about. I pray you receive Christ and allow this wonderful new life to come into to you and change you, as this new life has me.