Grow - Edition #2

This morning I read 1 Corinthians 15:1-19 as I am "journeying through the early church" with my local church body. I honed in on verses 9 and 10.

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been in vain. In fact, I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

I can go lots of directions with this passage, but what I really want to hone in on is this - why would God choose a complete whacked out evil guy like Paul to plant the early church? What can we learn from that? Three things immediately come to mind for me:

First, God can do anything [that is consistent with His character]. If He can create the world, create man, etc, then He can obviously transform the character of any whacked out dude. A good question for you is to assess whether there is something in your life that you are not bringing to the foot of the cross because you have no hope that God can take it from you.

Second, this short passage mentions "grace" three times. Grace is well-defined as "unmerited favor." Unmerited, as in I DON'T DESERVE IT. Favor, as in IT IS GREAT TO HAVE. So while we see (verse 9) that Paul is well-aware of his past decisions, he is not overwhelmed and imprisoned by shame from his past. A good application question for you is to assess whether you have any deep shame in your life that is holding you down. For instance, two years ago, there was a guy in my men's group that did something he shouldn't have done. He immediately assumed the rest of us guys thought he was awful, what he did was sick, etc. He basically assumed we judged him. The truth is, none of us did. We all knew we were capable of the same thing! While we wanted to enter his life and help him rest in the grace of God and lean on the Spirit to grow through it, he wanted to block us out because he assumed we were judging him. Remember, Jesus said He came to hang out with those who RECOGNIZED they are sick. We are all sick...but only some of us are fortunate enough to see we are sick.

Third, Paul really busted his butt to faithfully be used by God for His work. As he said "In fact, I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the grace of God with me." God used Paul to write more epistles than anyone else. God used Paul to plant more of the early church than anyone else. Paul wasn't a pacifist. He got after it. I pray five traits on my kids - love, integrity, wisdom, SERVANTHOOD and SELF-DISCIPLINE. Paul clearly had these five traits, and the point I am trying to make here ties to the last two. A good application question for you is to assess where you aren't being a man who takes responsibility for his calling in life. Where are you the guy who buries his talents in the field due to fear and pacifism?

Ephesians 2:10...