ODE TO PAUL

 

I am often amazed at how much influence one person can have, for better or for worse. I have studied the New Testament before but this year I saw the man Paul, his life and his heart. It has had a profound influence on me relative to my life. I have felt the beating of this man’s heart as I read the words which abridged our earthly span of time; from the time of that fateful day on the road to Damascus to the turnaround of his entire life to finding himself alone and abandoned facing death during the madness of Nero and his genocide of Christians in Rome.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie claimed that Paul was foreordained to his ministry because of his spiritual endowment, nurtured and earned in pre-existence (Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 2:91). His zeal, his devotion to God, his diligence in exact obedience, were all traits he brought with him but his recognition and adherence to the truth he owes to the person he met on the road to Damascus. Only the Saviour of the world, the crucified Christ, the long- awaited Messiah, could have changed his heart to the enabling of the new life he embraced, the suffering he endured, the love he bore for those he taught and the devotion to the only source of salvation that he took to the grave with him.

Paul is the prime example of the truth that the Saviour of all mankind can make of us much, much more than we can make of ourselves. Once we grant Him entrance to our heart, we are  never be the same again. Paul wasn’t, and he took that new heart to the grave with him. He worked, he suffered, he endured….and he owed it all to Christ Jesus, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, the great Jehovah, the Rock of our Salvation. To Him we owe all we are and all we can become if we yield our hearts to Him and Him only. May we like Paul, bring glory to His name and pay Him homage now and forever….

I gave up all

To come to know Thee and hear Thy call.

I sought the fertile ground

For Thy seeds to grow,

I nurtured the tender plants

And fed those who wanted to know.

I did it all

To catch Your crimson drops

In my grateful hands for them to fall.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: I Will Give You Rest by Yongsung Kim)

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