God goaded and poked the mulish pride of Saul—that Pharisaic ox. Day after day he kicked against those goads, till ultimately he got the message.

God will do whatever is needed to bring us to a point of comprehensive dependance on Him. He will be able to relentlessly, patiently, faithfully goad till we ultimately and happily submit to Him.

Let’s accept it, you’ll qualify as the best person on your block. You do not cheat on your taxes or purposely lie to your other half. You’ll have never committed what we’d call an outrageous act, saying nothing of seriously wounding someone you adore. You are living a life that is provoking to others, but you are light years from being righteous before God.

Until you’ve surrendered your life to Christ, you are as lost as Saul was on the Damascus road. If you have never made that call, what a great moment this would be if you would set this book aside, bow your heart before the living Christ at this sweet moment, and receive Him as your Savior. You could have been a Christian for some considerable time, but you are adhering to the reins of your own rebel will. You must know that God will goad you too. He’ll bring you to a place in your life where you realize there is not any point in continuing to kick against the goads.

Allegedly, “to kick against the goads” was a standard expression found in both Greek and Latin literature—a agricultural image, which rose from the practice of farmers goading their oxen in the fields. Though unfamiliar to us, everyone in that day accepted its meaning.

Goads were sometimes made of slim pieces of timber, blunt on one end and pointed on the other. Farmers utilised the pointed end to urge a dour ox into motion.

Often , the beast would kick at the goad. The more the ox kicked, the more probable the goad would stab into the flesh of its leg, causing bigger agony. Saul’s conversion could seem to us as having been a unexpected skirmish with Christ. But based totally on the Lord’s expression relating to his kicking back, I think He’d been working on him for ages prodding and goading him.

I think the words and works of Jesus haunted the enthusiastic Pharisee. Equivalent in age, they would be contemporaries in a town Saul knew well and Jesus often visited. The more it goaded him, the more that he resisted God’s proddings. His words and works follow you deep in your conscience.

That is the reason why I inspire folk who are heightening their attempts to withstand the Gospels’ claims to look at the life of Christ—to inspect scrupulously His charming words. The general public who sincerely pursue them can’t leave Him without at least reevaluating their lives.

When bad things occur, they frequently happen to the incorrect person. And when that happens, we are always left with that haunting query, “Why?” Somewhere in all this, there’s room for the tale of Job.

For, as we have learned, a better man never lived in his day. He wasn’t only a good man, he used to be a godly man. He wasn’t only a unswerving hubby, he used to be a loving and devoted pa.

With lots of land, a surplus of food, and acceptable stock and camels to back Job’s dreams, it looked as if his whole future would be a downward slide. I imagine that in the fight of that first fitful night, making an attempt to sleep after burying all 10 kids with his very own hands, laying alongside his mourning better half who had also endured the loss, much of what had occurred was still a blur. I have talked to a few of those officials who were in the building at that point.

One admitted to his very own humiliation, “It never dawned on many of us the Pentagon was next.” We may never know for sure if the 3rd plane was looking to find the government and, thanks to the foliage of mid-September, could not do so. The pilot, in his exasperating plan to collapse the plane, spotted this five-sided building and tore a hole two hundred feet wide because of a double explosion—first from the plane itself crashing into the building and then the igniting of the fuel that sent fire down the wide corridor. At least it was not fair from our point of view. He had blest his Pa ; in reality, he had worshiped Him, and Devil could not stand it.

The essence of real repentance is that the mind does a turnaround. The Greek word is metanoia, meaning, literally, “to change one’s mind.” That is exactly what’s happened to the once-proud Pharisee on the road to Damascus. He modified his mind about God, about Jesus, about the Resurrection, about those who followed Christ.

This One who knew his name also knew what he’d been doing.

The raging rebel had ultimately met his match, and there wasn’t any place or way to cover. Some Christians try and impose their stiff system of yes and no’s on the issue of conversion. I need to caution against that kind of exercise.

It’s very unlikely to find any single place in Scripture that unearths the one-and-only way each sinner comes to Christ. While the message of the Gospel is the same, strategies differ. We are so conditioned by denominational backgrounds, spiritual traditionalism, and narrow-thinking bias, we not get the point of The Lord God’s grace. Be careful about accurate necessities on someone that truly turns to the Savior. Lost folk are saved while listening to a great song about Christ or while hearing a bible basher or Bible teacher explaining God’s Word from a pulpit or over TV or on the radio. Many come to Him all alone, while praying in the privacy of their houses. Night or day a sinner can call on the Lord Jesus Christ in religion and be saved. Without reference to precisely when Saul was converted, he noticed that the living Jesus, whom he had hated and denied his complete life, was now his Savior and Lord.

On his way to make an even larger name for himself, the laser of Our Lord God’s presence stopped him in his tracks, striking him blind. Like that group of shepherds faithfully watching their sheep years earlier on another heavy night outside Jerusalem, Saul and his companions slid to the ground, shocked. You get the news in the middle of the night on the phone, and you cannot move. As the cop describes the head-on collision, you stand frozen in denial. After hearing the word “cancer,” you are so startled you can barely walk out the doctor’s office doors. A pal once admitted to me that, after hearing his feared diagnosis, he stumbled to the men’s room, puked, collapsed to his knees, and sobbed frantically. Life’s unexpected jolts grip us with such fear we will be able to scarcely go on. For the 1st time in his proud, self-sustained life, Saul found himself a desperate dependent.

Not only was he pinned to the ground, he was blind.

His other senses were on alert and, to his awe, he heard a voice from heaven say, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” ( Acts 9:4 ). Instead, he found out that the true object of his evil savagery was Christ Himself. It is the sort of shoddy religion that commends God sits on the edge of heaven thinking, Wonder what they will do next.

From the instant we are conceived to the instant we die, we remain safely in the frame of His watchful gawk and His sovereign plan for us.

I never set my affections on these things in the 1st place. And when it came to the children, I have accepted from the day we had our first kid till we had our last, they’re all God’s. He’s the person who gave them, and he’s the person who has got the right to take them whenever He wants them back.”. That explains how Job could say in all truthfulness, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And why the biblical story adds, “Through all this Job didn’t sin nor did he blame God” ( Job 1:21–22 ).

When you begin to understand that everything you have is on loan, you are more prepared to release it when the owner wants it back. And in the interlude, “Lord God, sanctified be Your name for loaning me everything I am in a position to enjoy.”.

“Through all this Job didn’t sin.” Isn’t that wonderful? “Nor did he blame God.” Why blame God? As one man has written, “God has given him a walk through for death. All things belong to God, positively, to be given as a present, not claim, to be taken back without wrong. There’s no talk about human ‘rights.’ The Lord is the sovereign owner of all, and Job rejoices in this excellent fact.”.

With twenty / twenty point of view, Job lifted himself off the ground, looked around at all that had modified, then put his arm round his grieving wife, held her close, and murmured, “God gave, and for some unrevealed reason, He selected to take back. This complete chapter could have been created in 3 words.

Due to David’s many mighty acts and the bequest he left, it is easily forgotten that for 12 or more years he lived as a fugitive and spent many hours of discouragement and disillusionment in the wasteland. He used to be a damaged, humbled man during those days as a fugitive. He learned much from those squashing years, but small good would come from his reliving the discomfort they brought into his life. How did he take the throne? Did he typhoon into the job and demand everybody to submit to his rule? No David was a delicate man.

He had learned the way to lead and the way to rally others around him in the defects of his yesterday.

Frequently we are better at handling affliction than we are at handling promotions.

As Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish essayist and historian, asserted, “But for one man who can stand wealth, there are 100 which will stand adversity.” But David was a person faced with success. If there was ever an opportunity for someone to take life by his very own 2 fists and demand a following, it was now. He revealed, actually “Begin your reign in Hebron.”. You may be in a scenario where you are curious, “God has opened the door, and I am about to stroll thru it. But is that what I should do?” Our bias is to race in when there’s some benefit which will come our way. Sometimes it’s best to start terribly noiselessly, to pace our first steps with great care.

Behind the great crisis of Saul’s life is a particularly fascinating analogy—an analogy between Saul’s death and Christ’s death.

At first impression we would say, “What in the world would we find common to both Saul and Christ?” in fact there are 6 analogies worth pointing out. First, Saul’s death seemed to be the end of all countrywide hope. When Saul died, many of us must have thought that is the end of Israel. The Philistines will certainly conquer us now.

In a corresponding way, Christ’s death seemed to be the end of all countrywide and religious hope. 2nd , with Saul’s death it appeared the enemy had won the final victory. When Christ died, it seemed as if the rival of our souls had won. He must have strutted all over the gates of hell declaring, “The victory is mine.

3rd , Saul’s death paved the way for an entirely new plan of operation and heralded David’s kingly line, which led straight to the Messiah. When Jesus Christ died, a completely new operation moved into action and set in motion our great deliverance. 4th , Saul’s death opened the chance for another who wouldn’t otherwise have been included in Our Lord God’s line of blessing, specifically David.

5th , Saul’s death stopped an age of dissatisfaction and failure. Christ’s death finished an era of law and guilt, introducing a totally new arrangement based totally on grace. Sixth, and ultimately, Saul’s death displayed the foolishness of man. Christ’s death displayed, in human terms, the foolishness of Our Lord God. Thru the “foolishness” of Our Lord God’s plan, He brings to pass the amazing.

He is taking the preached word and He changes lives due to His Child’s death.

What do you believe people who survive you’ll write as your epitaph? How will your obituary read? What words will be employed in the eulogy to sum up your life? Saul’s epitaph was a unhappy one, summing up the sad life of this person who played such a very important role in David’s life.

Like Saul and his boys, we are all going to die. At other times it is wrenching and appalling, bloody and grotesque. On other occasions it appears the cold fingers of death linger too long as some dear soul endures discomfort and unhappiness, isolation and senility. But here’s the good news for Christians : We who know the Lord Jesus Christ carry inside ourselves a replenished soul and spirit, that part of us which He attacked currently we were born from above—when we became Christians. So we don’t lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being replenished day by day.

For momentary, light affliction is manufacturing for us an eternal weight of glory way beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which aren’t seen ; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which aren’t seen are endless.

What part are you playing today? Is it authentic? Is it really Christian? If that is the case let me return to the questions I asked as you started this reading for today.

What do you suspect people who survive you may write as your epitaph? How will your obituary read? What words will sum up your life?

She or he wants it to seem like the work is very hard. In truth, the harder and strained the look, the better. Christian employees are scandalous for what I call the “tired blood” look, more widely known as the burdened and outmoded “missionary image,” or, better said the exhausted “overburdened spiritual image.” They sometimes carry an old, worn-out Bible, and walk with a slump, listing to port. They infrequently smile—sort of a “please pity me” image. The sad fact is, a number of these people are overworked and barely have enough to live on.

But I suspect you may be in full time ministry without needing to are like the poor-me stereotype. The most happy folks on earth ought to be those among us in the Lord God’s service. We have each reason to grin more than anybody else. Although our work is very serious, we ought to have more fun and have a better time doing it than anyone in any other career or calling. I believe an individual in cross-cultural ministry or a local priest ought to be ready to enjoy their taste in music and live it up, just like anyone else.

Overtly , people who look like they have just finished their last piece of bread don’t minister extraordinarily effectively, definitely not to me. People who minister to me, and those to whom I suspect I minister, are ladies and men who truly enjoy life. We actually do not have to spend all our time on the negatives of life ; there are sufficient heart-breaking experiences to go around for every one of us. There are occasions when you should work longer than you must. But we don’t have to remind most pastors of the necessity to work harder. “You’re making your job harder than it should be.