In Galatians 1:23-24 Paul states “They (the Judeans) only heard the report: ‘the man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’ And they praised God because of me.” Before Paul started following Jesus, he was responsible for persecuting and killing Christians for their beliefs in Christ. It took one encounter with Jesus for Him to be completely transformed from the inside out, and then, the Lord used the sin Paul once had for the good of the kingdom. The Lord turned what was once lost into a testimony of His faithfulness and into a story of hope for generations to come.
In Romans 12:6 Paul states “We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us”. The Lord is so kind to take parts of our past that seem to be painful, to cover them with His grace and then return them back to us as a gift. When Paul encountered the Lord, he was brought to repentance for his sins, for persecuting God’s church. Paul was forgiven of the sins He had committed because of the sacrifice that was made by Jesus on the cross. Then, not only was Paul’s sins covered in the grace of Jesus, He then turned the situation around to use for Paul’s good, for the good of the kingdom, and for the Gentiles that Paul would encounter. Where there was once fear, it could not stand. Where there was once death, there was now life. And what once seemed hopeless, now was filled with so much hope. This is a work that can only be completed through Christ.
I consider my own testimony and the parts that I often withhold from people because of the shame the enemy has placed onto it. And then I look to what the Lord did with Paul. Paul boldly declared what the Lord did through his life. He had an awareness that the sins that once bound him now had no hold on Him through the power of the cross. Through Christ, his sins have been forgiven and the Father sees Paul through the Christ in Him. Later on, in Galatians, it states “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” It is no longer Paul who lives, nor is it the sin that lives in Him, but it is Christ who lives through him, completing good works, transforming his life, and giving true life. This is not just Paul’s testimony; this is our testimony too. Christ died so that we could live. Now, with the grace given to us, we have the privilege of using the very things that led to our spiritual death, the wounds that once kept us bound, the shame that we once had, to testify to others in gladness that we have been set free and by His stripes, they can too.
