"For God has chosen the foolish and seemingly least important people of the world to confound those who think themselves to be wise...
...and the most base and despised of society to humble those with worldly power and authority who look down on and think they're better than everyone else" (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). This is my personal version of this passage of Scripture.
What amazes me about God, and what I admire about Him, is that He is not a respecter of persons. He does not necessarily accept or reject individuals by their status within society, nor even their behavior. His ways of doing things are far different than society's.
For example, God chose a murderer and fugitive running from justice to be the deliverer of the Jewish race. He called Moses, a man who, forty years earlier, deliberately took the life of an Egyptian citizen and then tried to hide his victim's body by burying it in the sand. But when his crime was discovered, he fled. Yet forty years later this killer on the run was called back to Egypt, the scene of the crime, to plead before the mighty Pharaoh to let the Jews go. Moses went from being a murderer to a hero.
Next came Israel's King David, the slayer of his peoples' arch enemy, Goliath. David, a battle-hardened warrior who led his troops into combat many times, had fallen into grievous sin. He committed adultery with the wife of one of his top generals, a man by the name of Uriah. David coldly had him killed so he could take possession of his wife. Adultery and murder was what David was guilty of. Yet God allowed King David to remain in power, although punishing him severely. In spite of his sins, David remained the "apple of God's eye."
Then there was the apostle, Paul. A devout Jew who would come to embrace Jesus as his Messiah. Before he became Paul he was the bloodthirsty Saul, who, by his own admission, put many of his fellow Jews to death for embracing Jesus, the very One whom he would ultimately embrace and serve until his death.
The Almighty chose Paul to write what was to become a sizeable portion of the New Testament. Among Paul's works is the famous "love" chapter, 1 Corinthians, chapter thirteen. A multiple murderer and former persecutor of the early church, Paul would become a saint. God could have struck him dead, but He had another plan for Paul.
Paul was shown mercy as an example of God's great mercy. The once fanatical murderer of Christians went on to become its most adored preacher, teacher, and evangelist.
How many criminals is the Lord choosing today? I don't know. But it is a larger number than society would believe. Murderers, prostitutes and thieves. God has chosen people like me to show humanity that all sin can be forgiven. There is no sin which the blood of Jesus Christ cannot wash away.
D.B.
What amazes me about God, and what I admire about Him, is that He is not a respecter of persons. He does not necessarily accept or reject individuals by their status within society, nor even their behavior. His ways of doing things are far different than society's.
For example, God chose a murderer and fugitive running from justice to be the deliverer of the Jewish race. He called Moses, a man who, forty years earlier, deliberately took the life of an Egyptian citizen and then tried to hide his victim's body by burying it in the sand. But when his crime was discovered, he fled. Yet forty years later this killer on the run was called back to Egypt, the scene of the crime, to plead before the mighty Pharaoh to let the Jews go. Moses went from being a murderer to a hero.
Next came Israel's King David, the slayer of his peoples' arch enemy, Goliath. David, a battle-hardened warrior who led his troops into combat many times, had fallen into grievous sin. He committed adultery with the wife of one of his top generals, a man by the name of Uriah. David coldly had him killed so he could take possession of his wife. Adultery and murder was what David was guilty of. Yet God allowed King David to remain in power, although punishing him severely. In spite of his sins, David remained the "apple of God's eye."
Then there was the apostle, Paul. A devout Jew who would come to embrace Jesus as his Messiah. Before he became Paul he was the bloodthirsty Saul, who, by his own admission, put many of his fellow Jews to death for embracing Jesus, the very One whom he would ultimately embrace and serve until his death.
The Almighty chose Paul to write what was to become a sizeable portion of the New Testament. Among Paul's works is the famous "love" chapter, 1 Corinthians, chapter thirteen. A multiple murderer and former persecutor of the early church, Paul would become a saint. God could have struck him dead, but He had another plan for Paul.
Paul was shown mercy as an example of God's great mercy. The once fanatical murderer of Christians went on to become its most adored preacher, teacher, and evangelist.
How many criminals is the Lord choosing today? I don't know. But it is a larger number than society would believe. Murderers, prostitutes and thieves. God has chosen people like me to show humanity that all sin can be forgiven. There is no sin which the blood of Jesus Christ cannot wash away.
D.B.
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