Missions Paul

It is obvious as we have been reading this chapter that the most important thing in Paul’s mind is actually not the amazing doctrinal truths that he is going to write about. No. He just wants to clear his name. Rival preachers have been saying that Paul got his gospel from the Jerusalem church and on his journey into Galatia he had purposely dropped the importance of circumcision from this gospel he had been taught. Paul is adamant. He knows his own story. He got the gospel from the risen Messiah, Jesus Christ, it was this visitation that verified his apostleship. He then went immediately into Arabia. The date was approximately AD33.

“I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭1‬:‭17‬-‭20‬ ‭

Why in approximately AD 36 did Paul go to Jerusalem?

Just over 2 weeks actually, 15 days, getting to know, becoming acquainted with Peter (Cephas). That’s why he was there. He wasn’t sent for. He went on his own violation. Paul was hearing Peter’s story and all that he had seen and heard from Jesus. He also heard from James. Paul was sharing his own story too. This was not a new Christian-Paul. He was 3 years a follower of Jesus. He was not learning the gospel. He already had it.

Paul shows us that we cannot do this Christian life on our own: we cannot stay in Arabia and neither can we start our own itinerary ministry in Damascus. We need to do this Christian life in community. We need people to pray with and to support us. We need fellowship. We need to be investors into other people and we need investing in.

About 6 months ago a young Pastor I didn’t know very well asked to come and spend the day with me. At first I didn’t know what on earth we were going to be doing and could we even talk all day? But I wanted to give this young man who was travelling a long way as much time as possible. So I scheduled a day for him. It was an incredible day of drinking copious amounts of coffee, eating and sharing our lives. It ended with me being very energised and inspired by this young man’s passion for Jesus and the mission. It was a God appointment for me.

There are times we don’t need conferences and seminars etc. we just need coffee with people and good inspiring conversations about Jesus.

Paul takes a solemn oath because he is desperate for them to believe him. He had the gospel before he met anyone. But his story of those 2 weeks with Peter and James tells us so much more. If the Apostle Paul needed people then so do we.

Imagine with me a lengthy period of time with no noise because you have found a place where it is just you and God.  A season where there is time to meditate on who God is, what He has said and what He has done. Imagine God filling the silence with His presence. Imagine God filling you with faith.

Isaiah 30:15 “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.” So many of us are in the last few words of that verse, we ‘have none of it.’

Our world is anything but silent. Activity has increased, our minds are flooded with ‘to do’ lists, we have plans, strategies and every experience we have we immediately go on social media and tell the whole world. 

Maybe there are times not to tell. Maybe these times are times to think through what God has told us.

“… my immediate response was not to consult any human being. ¹⁷ I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.” (Galatians 1 v 16-17)

Remember that Paul is defending his own calling as an apostle. There are preachers saying he has learnt a gospel from others and yet Paul is clear. After receiving his revelation from the resurrected Jesus he didn’t go to Jerusalem to check his story out with those who had also seen the resurrected Jesus and known as the apostles. His immediate response was not that. He went into Arabia before returning to Damascus. There is a lovely comparison with Elijah in 1 Kings 19 who escaped to Mt Sinai (Horeb in Arabia) who then was sent to Damascus. The difference being that Elijah was depressed when he went to the mountain, Paul wasn’t.

The point is this. Perhaps Paul went to meet with God after his encounter and experience on the Damascus Road. The revelation he had received of Jesus being the Messiah was so undoing and mind-blowing he had to have time alone to process it. Was this a 3 year personal retreat? Or did he begin straight away evangelising amongst the Gentiles. No one knows. He certainly didn’t tell Luke, the scribe, about an Arabian missionary journey.

But what we can ponder today is what Paul didn’t do. He didn’t go and tell fellow believers of the huge privilege he has just encountered. He didn’t go to them and say, ’Look what happened to me!” They didn’t train him, disciple him and importantly interfere with the gospel he had received. This is the defence of his apostleship.

The point is this: are we too quick to run to people with the things we receive from God? Do we have a place whether Mount Sinai or another place where we can simply run to? Perhaps God wants you to hold on to what you have encountered from Him without telling people too quickly? Maybe He doesn’t want the world to know what He is telling you. Can He trust you to keep what He tells you confidential for a season? Is the reason for His encounter with you so that you will seek Him even further? I believe it is.

If you were to write down the story of your life then it would be a huge blessing to others to see how God came to you even before you knew Him; He purposed a pathway for your life; He transformed who you and He poured grace into your heart so that you could love people. That’s what He did and what He continually does for you. This is your testimony and it is marvellous. He did this for Apostle Paul also:-

“But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased ¹⁶ to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. ” (Galatians 1 v 15-16)

God had called him before Paul had achieved anything.

It wasn’t because someone else had pleased God in such a way that He looked at Paul and said I will call him. It wasn’t because Paul had pleased God in such a way because before we are born God knows what He is going to do with us. We know that we haven’t done anything to achieve such grace. In our mother’s womb God knew what our path in life would be. He calls each and every one of us before we have accomplished anything. He does it because of His own pleasure. Before we become a Christian our vocabulary is all about ‘me’ and ‘what I have done’ and then when we come into the revelation of who Christ is then we speak differently. We speak of who He is and what He has done.

God had separated him before Paul became a ‘separated one’ (a Pharisee).

Paul saw that he had been set apart at the beginning of his life, a long time before he joined the set-apart purist group of Pharisees. These are 2 important words (one word in the Greek) as they described who the Pharisees were. They were set apart to God. They felt good about themselves because they had proof they were different to the most. He didn’t take into his body anything that was impure or unclean. He didn’t drink or eat the wrong things. He had evidence of being pure. But the moment he met Christ he knew he wasn’t. He wasn’t really separated to God. He had to meet Christ for that to happen. On looking back he realised the importance of the word for set-apart. It wasn’t anything he could do but it was what Christ did for him.

God did a work in Paul as opposed to all the outward works of Paul’s life.

It is subtle but powerful. God did a work in and not to. People are impacted not because of what you do but who they see in you. Jesus!

God had called Paul to preach to the Gentiles before he began hating them.

In Paul’s day it was a fact that the Jews hated the Gentiles. That was part of the culture. Paul hated the Gentiles all his life and YET God had called Paul to reach out to those he hated. You too come out of a world of all kinds of prejudice. You love people now that you would never have thought you would. How and why?

It is all because He called you. Before you knew anything He called you. Before you did anything He called you. You are called here right now. That call is powerful. Today we go and walk out in that calling. Amen!

We have all met one.

A ‘know-it-all’. They are easy to spot. You can hear them and they know how to use social media.

In our journey with the Apostle Paul in this letter to the Galatian churches we see his confession that he was a know-it-all.

“For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” Galatians 1:13-14

Paul was not an atheist before he met Christ. Damascus was not a conversion experience towards faith in God. He already had faith. 

Paul believed he was doing the work of God when he persecuted the church. 

In his Jewish history there were examples of God’s leaders clamping down on individuals and groups who were endangering their faith. So Elijah kills 850 false prophets because he didn’t want his community to be impacted by false Baal worship. Paul is doing the same. He is working for God. This Jesus who apparently was resurrected is a danger. His followers are even more dangerous. They need to be stopped. “God wants me to do it”. He was convincingly right and absolutely wrong. He had Scripture verses to back him up and yet he was blind (God actually did temporarily blind him).

He says he was extremely zealous and had advanced in Judaism. This was not only theoretical. This would have been in a commitment to prayer and almost like a jihad to stamp out all forms of blasphemy. He became violent to the point of persecuting those within what he describes as this ‘church of God’. It is shocking and he words it like this on purpose. This was God’s people that he expressed violence towards. He was hell-bent on dealing ruthlessly with them, that would mean even killing people himself or at least presiding over their martyr deaths as he did with Stephen. He felt justified to break one of the commandments in order to do what he thought was God’s work and he was so blinded he never saw the hypocrisy of that. How did he feel justified?

Simple. He knew better than most.

Of course we will never be in such a situation. For we have come to Christ as he did (actually Christ came to him!). We are followers of Jesus so this is not going to happen for us. However, do we think we know better than others because of our experience and our activity? Social media is full of agents of God, the caretakers of the church, opinionated activists who are experts on many subjects and who are not afraid to tell people they are wrong.

What is spoken against you is not as established as it may look.

Paul begins a launch of the defence of his apostleship. There are lies spoken against him and the greatest is this:

“I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” Galatians 1 v 11-12

“I had not learnt it from another except Jesus”. This is important because he was being accused that he had distorted the gospel he had originally been taught from someone else. He had thus become a second-rate ‘apostle’ if that. His gospel could not be trusted. That’s what the preachers were preaching. It was amazing that so soon after the life of Jesus that preachers were spending more time preaching against others than they were of preaching the Name above all names. It still happens. 

Ever walked into a familiar room but realise straight away that something isn’t right? It doesn’t feel like the same room and then you realise the picture on the wall has dropped at one end. A small distortion of the truth, a simple stretching of the truth, an exaggeration of what really happened and then passed on in the whispering gossip channels and before long it is out of control and you cannot stop it nor defend your position. What do you do?

None of us will ever find ourselves in the same position that Paul did. In the sense that our defence will most probably not be the same as Paul. True that for many they have had dreams and visions of Christ and received the gospel from Him directly. But for the majority of us we heard it from someone else. 

And yet we all know the accusations about our own experience of God. We have either become fanatical or hypocritical. The judges on our walk with God seem to be ever around us commenting behind the scenes on what comes out of our mouth or what we are doing or not doing. That’s before we even think about our minds that judge us. 

So what can we do?

From these verses Paul teaches us to: 

• Have faith in your calling to Jesus.
• Know the truth of your relationship with Jesus. 
• Fully recognise what you have received from Jesus. 
• Be confident in the work of Jesus in your life.
• Be courageous to testify and defend what Jesus has and is still doing in your life. 

Have faith; Know the truth; Fully recognise; Be confident; Be courageous. 

These will combat any lies that come against you that you are not a good enough Christian. 

Sent from my iPhone

When people speak ill of you how do you respond? When others accuse you falsely how do you react? What or who is your go-to? Do you go seeking evidence? Some form of credential that supports your life, your work, the person you have become? Is that what you do?

Paul finds himself in this predicament. He will create a defence for sure. But before he does he turns to the One who his whole life is centred around. He turns to Christ.

“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

Galatians 1:10

“No. I’m not what those rival preachers have said about me. I used to try and please people, (If I were still …) but that was in my past.”

Paul will combat these allegations but first he speaks of the new foundation of his life. Before any other person and even before his own opinion his life was about and for Christ. He sees himself as a servant/slave to Christ. It’s what Christ says of him that matters more than people.

He uses the word doulos. Our English translators (most probably to combat the negative implications regarding the modern slave trade) use servant or bondservant but it is slave, doulos.

After God had rescued His people from slavery through the Exodus He gives them His law. One of the first things God starts to unpack in His Law to Moses is the freeing of slaves. The rule was that slaves were freed every 7 years. However if the slave loved working for their master they could stay and be paid for their work and enjoy their life within that household. If that happened the master would, “…take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life.” (Ex 21:6) They became a bondservant, doulos, one who has chosen to be owned.

Paul had been to the door and had his ear pierced, he was a slave of Christ Jesus, for life.

Who is the door? Jesus. (John 10:9)

Jesus is the portal, the doorway into a new season for your life.

There is no breakthrough without pain. Paul was already aware that he bore on his body the marks of Jesus (Galatians 6:17). Perhaps you bear those marks also? Maybe you have marks that no one can see? Marks are healed wounds and they become the vehicle of hearing God; our earlobes become pierced and He speaks powerfully and intimately as He would also tell Paul later that, “my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).

There is no other way for more of God and more of His power and work in our lives. You don’t live to please people but Him. There is only one prayer: “…pierce my ear …”

I have chosen to be owned by Christ Jesus. I belong to Him. Tell Jesus this today. He has your ear. That mark is now the opportunity of intimacy. It repositioned you. Those who understand what I am saying know that the Lord opens the door of new seasons to those who have been pierced to the door.

That is the greatest introduction of yourself that you will ever give and the best rebuttal to those who may look down on you.

This morning I wake thinking and praying for a Pastor who has received slanderous comments from within their church. It has hurt him deeply and the reason being is not that there was any truth in what was said but the comments were too close for comfort (it was indeed personal whether or not the slanderer realised it or not).

I say that because this next verse is showing that Paul also experienced what this Pastor has.

“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1 v 10)

When Paul was a strict Pharisee he would have looked at those who were not adhering to his righteous living as people who were compromising in order to please people. Now he is being called a people-pleaser himself. Whether it was said on purpose or not, it hurts. The irony is it comes from the preachers and teachers who were themselves doing anything they could to please the Romans. They tried to deceive the Galatia church into circumcision so that they could say there is only one Jewish group. We know this because of what he writes at the end of the letter, “Those who want to impress people by means of the flesh are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. Not even those who are circumcised keep the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your circumcision in the flesh” (6:12-13). So actually it is the name-callers who are the people-pleasers, not Paul.

What happened to Paul is what happened to Jesus.

John 8 v48-59 “The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” “I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honour my Father and you dishonour me. 

I wrote these 5 things down on a piece of paper some time back when I was praying for someone hurt by comments:-

• Words really do count and they can hurt, it is not just sticks and stones.
• Words that are slurs outweigh the over-sensitivity of people.
• Words lead to consequences.
• Words build on sand where nothing of substance is formed.
• Words come from fools who live to regret their words.

I think the answer is within this proverb:

The words that flow from the Spirit-filled believer is like honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones (Proverbs 16 v24). Words that flow from the non-Spirit filled believer do not.

If you are hurt today because of comments said to you yesterday then know that it happened to Jesus and it happened to Paul.

There is an urgency about this letter from Paul. If you looked at some of his other letters (Romans, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians) then you would see that here in his letter to the churches in Galatia there is no congratulations, no encouragement or thank-you. He is greatly disturbed. He cannot believe what he is hearing. He never thought this would happen.

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷ which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! ⁹ As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!” (Galatians 1 v 6-9)

Be reminded of what Paul has said in v3-5, the clear gospel message is in 4 statements about what Jesus the Messiah has done:-

1. who gave himself for our sins
2. to rescue us from the present evil age
3. according to the will of our God and Father
4. to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

So what is going on in Galatia?

Paul says they are deserting the One who called them into grace, they are turning from Jesus; they were speaking a different gospel that wasn’t a gospel; they are confused by some people, preachers and teachers presumably; there is a curse of God available.

One of those places was Antioch which Paul and Barnabas had come back from on Paul’s first missionary journey. In Acts 15 the whole problem was discussed in the council at Jerusalem.

Acts 15:24 “We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said.”

What is not clear is whether some leaders had left the Jerusalem church to visit Antioch in secret and they did it with their Pharisaic spirit or that they in fact were sent by Jerusalem but they overstepped their remit and began to bring their rules that had never been laid out by the Church in Jerusalem or by Paul and Barnabas.

Some people have a personal campaign, an untested and unchallenged voice. They are the lone rangers of the church.

Some people can be within a gracious Church but come out as law enforcers. Being within grace doesn’t mean grace is within you.

Some people speak with authority without being under authority.

Some people when they speak, disturb and steal peace and think this is what God does to His children.

Some people go further and do more than what was expected or asked of them. They may have an entrepreneurial passion and belief and be willing to take risks to make it happen. But breaking from the whole doesn’t mean they are right.

Some people are just some and not everyone. It can be fixed.

The Jews in Galatia who had come to know Jesus would not be expecting the non-Jews to simply join the ‘family’ simply because of belief in Jesus and nothing else. They had special privileges from Rome as a Jew. They had permission to be the worshipper of one God. These Gentiles were threatening this. Paul had preached that Gentiles came also from the line of Abraham just like the Jew and should not worship local gods as the Jews didn’t. So to the outside position it looked like there were 2 ‘Jewish’ groups. So would Rome tolerate this? Would the Jews lose their privileges? So some preachers and teachers gave a different gospel. Every follower of Jesus should be circumcised at least and then everyone will be happy with the status quo. For Paul this was actually a curse because it was completely a different message than the gospel. The different gospel was about surviving the old age which Jesus had rescued us from not embracing the new age He had ushered in. The glory to God that the gospel brings was now experiencing a curse because it was not the gospel at all.

The Gospel is a complete new way of living not a crutch to help you survive how you have lived.

Yesterday I shared how Alan Renshaw received his home call. An Indiana Jones type of missionary. I began the devotional with him and then moved into these verses in Galatians 1 v 3-5. I want to finish what Paul said today about the clear message.

 “To the churches in Galatia: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (Galatians 1 v 3-5)

Paul summarises that gospels into 4 statements, yesterday I wrote about the first two.

1. who gave himself for our sins
2. to rescue us from the present evil age
3. according to the will of our God and Father
4. to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Here is the clear gospel message.

a) Into a world known for its idolatry and paganism where the only monotheists were the Jews and they saw every non-Jew as an idolater and sinner, comes Jesus who gave himself for our sins. 

b) Throughout Bible history up until the moment that Jesus chose to surrender his life (Passover), we have God being revealed as the rescuer.

c) All this was not by chance but by the creative will and act of God. This was not to simply get us to heaven but to give us an opportunity to live free from this ‘present evil age’. It was always God’s will for us to thrive, to be a new creation and to live our best lives in this new age brought about by the giving of Jesus. We are not delivered from in the sense that we are taken out of the world, but we are called to follow Jesus in this present age. When we fully understand the cross then we understand our own life. He was handed over. He was nailed to the cross. He was put to death. But God was never in a crisis. It was indeed something pre-arranged. It was in His plan. Therefore, whatever bad happens to you. It sits in the hands of a good God. There is a purpose. You will see it. Just stay following Jesus in this present age. The story will unfold.

d) The result is that our lives demonstrate worship to God and in our communities we pray and praise bringing glory to His Name. Today pause and refresh yourself again in the clear message; let our Father flow through you; and move towards Him in worship in everything you do then you will know that in everything that happens you will bring glory to His Name. There is no way we will ever understand fully the glory of God this side of heaven. In its simplistic form it is to see His beauty by way of God’s actions and by His character and nature. Suffering is the place in which glorification takes place. The suffering of the cross.

There is a work on earth that we need to finish and it will involve our pain and suffering. We will struggle and it won’t be easy. We are all in the work as followers of Jesus. The work of doing what the Father asks of us. The work of every day rising to be the best disciple of Christ we can be. Richard, the Bishop of Chichester died in 1253 having only been a priest for 10 years. He lived a difficult life under the oppression of King Henry III. He ended up spending nearly 2 years walking barefoot throughout his diocese, can you imagine that? He wrote this prayer which sums up the work we are all called into until we die:

Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits Thou hast given me, for all the pains and insults thou hast borne for me. O most merciful redeemer, friend and brother, may I know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly and follow thee more nearly, day by day.

Today, your loved one may have left you. You may feel alone for all kinds of reasons. But you are still here and the work is still to be done.  Know Him. Love Him. Follow Him. Today. Finish the work. Bring Him glory on your earth. For tomorrow there is a glory to come.

Those, like Alan Renshaw, who are with Jesus in heaven right now are in the fullness of that glory! We will experience that ourselves but for now, here on earth, we finish the work and bring glory to Him who suffered for us. “I greet you with the great words, grace and peace! We know the meaning of those words because Jesus Christ rescued us from this evil world we’re in by offering himself as a sacrifice for our sins. God’s plan is that we all experience that rescue. Glory to God forever! Oh, yes!” (The Message)

Only a few months ago I spent some time in the home of Alan and Anne Renshaw. They were the ‘Indiana Jones’ of Elim Missions. If you knew them you were privileged. Anne will need our prayers along with their family. Yesterday morning Alan went home to be with His Lord.

Alan had been called by God to Tanzania when he was in the Royal Navy, where he had stopped off in Dar-Es-Salam. It was in 1960 that he and Anne moved as missionaries to this nation and served there for 3 years before returning to where they were originally placed in Zimbabwe. Alan and Anne (a school teacher) threw themselves into the work of evangelism, church planting and of course it was all supported by his amazing practical skills. He was responsible for not only the building of churches but also of Pastor’s houses.

Alan and Anne have always been connected to our Grimsby church having pastored there in the late 70’s. The church released them to go back to Tanzania for 6 months in 1980 and then in 1981 they returned to Tanzania until 1998 when they retired and moved back to their home just outside Grimsby. But even in retirement Alan was preaching the gospel leading a Pentecostal Church in his village. He carried the clear message.

I wanted to share all that this morning before we move into the next sentences of Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia. For it is a testimony in our day of what was written in the Apostle Paul’s time, around 40-50 AD.

“To the churches in Galatia: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (Galatians 1 v 3-5)

Not only did Jesus call God this name, He taught his disciples to do the same and they in turn passed on that same baton which (coupled with the help of the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives) we all can call God ‘… our Father’. And who is our? It is everyone who follows Jesus whether from the Jewish culture (traditional greeting is peace) or the Greek culture (the traditional greeting is grace). It is Paul’s way of speaking to everyone and he has a reason to do so, it is the gospel message. Here he summarises that gospels into 4 statements:-

1. who gave himself for our sins
2. to rescue us from the present evil age
3. according to the will of our God and Father
4. to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Here is the clear gospel message.

a) Into a world known for its idolatry and paganism where the only monotheists were the Jews and they saw every non-Jew as an idolater and sinner, comes Jesus who gave himself for our sins.  This was the world, so much so that if a man wanted to leave idolatry to worship one God then they had to be circumcised to prove they were leaving that idolatrous world behind. But Jesus gave himself on the cross to defeat the powers behind such idolatry and which had such a grip on people’s lives. This is a huge message for Paul because if people are set free from idolatry because Jesus defeated the powers behind the scenes then there is nothing more that needs to be done except to live in freedom. There is no point to circumcision as a means to prove anything. Their/our identity has changed. They/we are no longer sinners.

b) Throughout Bible history up until the moment that Jesus chose to surrender his life (Passover), we have God being revealed as the rescuer. From the Exodus to Golgotha, God has rescued us, that’s what Paul saw. He sees the Passover in the shadow of the cross. Jesus is the Rescuer sent by God. David was able to say in Psalm 116:6 “When I was in great need, he saved me.” Job said in 23:10 (Amplified) “he knows the way that I take.” (He has concern for it, appreciates it and pays attention to it). He knows where you are. You may be a long way off like the Prodigal son. You may be like Moses, someone who became a-nobody. Your best days are over. Forty years ago you made the biggest mistake that altered your whole life. You may be like Elijah, running away, you’ve had enough and are asking what the point of life is. You may be like the woman who lost her husband and with that her future, her life, her security. The only thing she had in her house was a little oil. The Old Testament is full of these people needing the rescuing hand of God.

Continued tomorrow 🙂