The Father’s Love May Be Deep, but How Shallow is Yours?

Have you ever stopped to think about how deep God’s love is for His children, and what He accomplished on the Cross for the sins of His people?  Nothing can compare.  And when He grants us faith and repentance, and we come to Him, run to Him, believe on Him who alone can save, what a most humbling and glorious thing this is.  When we see Jesus Christ for who He is and we see ourselves for who, and what we are…poor, wicked, depraved, sinners who are utterly unable and unwilling to come to God on our own because we are separated from Him, and we are dead.  We can’t do anything but sin and spit in the face of God.  But when Christ saves us, when He regenerates us and gives us new life in Him, how can we not but speak of Him?

So many people today have Jesus Christ tacked onto their life, like some good luck charm, or as something to add to their life to make it better, either here on earth or in Heaven.  Jesus Christ in many areas has become something cultural, something to do on Sundays and His name is thrown around like a father and son throw around a baseball in the yard.  His name is Holy, and is not to be taken in vain, yet so many do today who call themselves Christians.  There are those who call themselves Christians and their idea of being one is living by some set of legalistic rules, doing certain things, and going and not going certain places.

Then many of these same people,  are those that say they’re Christians, and love Jesus, and will spend alot of time in fellowship with other believers, yet never once mentioning the name of Christ, …except maybe in a prayer of blessing for the meal.  In all the conversation that takes place in the hours spent in fellowship, not once is the name of Christ spoken, nor are the things of God rarely ever spoken.  How ashamed it is to be in fellowship with other believers and yet never once speak about the things of God or speak the name of God.  It grieves my heart to be around this and to see it. (And yet I am convicted about this very thing in my own life)

How can we say that we love God, that He saved us, and changed our lives, and yet get together with other Christians and talk about everything else but God?  Is our love for God, our desire for Him, our thirst for Him that shallow that we can only speak about Him, or open His Word on Sundays and Wednesdays? If we as Christians truly understood our own depravity, the fact that we all deserve nothing but Hell, and  the Salvation that we have in Him and what He accomplished on the Cross in atoning for our sins, and that if it were not for God coming to us, and regenerating our lost, and dead souls, we would still be dead in our sins, separated from God and on our way to Hell.   Christ made us alive in Him when we were utterly unable and unwilling to come to Him.  He is the one who made us thirsty, and willing to come to Him in faith and repentance.  He alone is the One who grants faith and repentance. There is nothing good within any of us that we could come to Him on our own.  The only good in me is Christ!

How can we not but speak about Him, no matter where we are or who we are around?  My prayer is that I would be totally consumed with Christ, that my life, home, marriage and family would be totally consumed with Him.  That they all would smell of the sweet savor of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  The Father’s Love may be deep, but how shallow is yours?  Scripture does say in Luke 6:45, “…out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

Who is Able to Stand Before Him?

Psalm 130:3 says, “If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?”…Because of our sins, none of us are worthy to stand before Him, much less enter His Kingdom.  “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.”  With Jesus Christ, there is forgiveness.  He is the only one who can forgive.  My heart cries out this morning with the Psalmist when he says in verses 1-2, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!”

We are all born sinful.  From birth the only thing each one of us deserves is to die and go to Hell.  Scripture tells us that if we commit just one we’re guilty of all.  Just one sin is more than enough to deserve to die and go to Hell.  So why should God save us?  Why should He bless us?  Who are we that, as wicked and sinful creatures, could ever think we deserve anything from God, our Creator?  And who are we to question why God does what He does?  This is like what Romans 9 speaks about, the clay asking the Potter “Why have you molded me this way?”

If we understand Scripture correctly, we understand that we are dead in our trespasses and sins and can do nothing but sin.  There is absolutely NO good within us.  There is absolutely no hope.  None.  The only difference between a believer and a non-believer, is Christ. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.  As a Christian, I did not make some choice of my own free will, but it was wholly of God.  He completely changed my life.  I can take no credit for it because I understand what Scripture says about me as a lost man, dead in my sins, with a heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. I was born this way, and there was nothing I could do to change it, apart from Christ choosing to do a work in me that only He could do.

But then still, as a Christian, I continue to do a battle with the flesh.  It is something we all deal with.  So why does God continue to bless us?   As sinful, wicked creatures, who from our very birth were, and still are wicked, why on earth does God continue to shower blessings upon us?   Why did He even choose to save me?  These are questions I ask all the time, because although I know that He has changed my life, and my desire is to live a holy life, I still sin.  I am still flesh and will continue to battle it until the Lord calls me home.  So why does He still bless me, and better yet, why did He save me?  One simple answer. It is all for His purpose and glory (Ephesians 1).

Since there is nothing good in me, and apart from Christ, I am and can do nothing, then all the good that I have in life, everything both good and seemingly bad is all for His glory.  The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  We are to glorify God with our lives, but apart from Him working in our lives we can’t even do that.  We can’t even do that unless we are one of His children, and we can’t even become one of His children until we obey God’s command to repent and believe.  But…we can’t repent and believe the Gospel, until God grants us faith and repentance.  It all goes directly back to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Soli deo Gloria!

So this morning I thank God for His Mercy upon me, and his undeserved blessings and unbelievable Grace that He has given to me.  “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning,” .  My hope is only in the Lord, the Immortal Creator and Sovereign Orchestrator.

And I will also leave you with a video and some of the lyrics to this song, “Triune Praise” by Shai Linne:

VERSE 1
Praise God the Father, the Immortal Creator (1 Cor. 8:6)
For Your glory you made us (Is. 43:6), You’re the Sovereign
Orchestrator (Eph. 1:11)
All that You decree will most surely come to happen (Is. 14:24)
You’re awesome as can be and Your glory none can fathom
(Ps. 104:1)
Nothing could ever stain You, the heavens can’t contain You
(2 Chron. 6:18)
We thank You for sending Your Son to explain You (John 1:18)
Otherwise we would have remained in the dark
but You sent Your Holy Spirit to spark a change in our hearts
(Matt. 4:16-17, 2 Cor. 4:6)
According to Your eternal purpose and will
You determined to reveal Yourself to those who deserve to be killed
(Luke 10:21, Rom. 1:32)
Those of us whom You foreknew adore You
We praise You that You predestined us to be conformed to
The image of Your Son who’s the radiance of Your glory
(Romans 8:29, Heb. 1:3)
When I meditate on it, the weightiness of it fl oors me (1 Chron. 16:25,
Psalm 139:6)
So Father, we’ll praise you over and over again (Ps. 34:1)
Because You sent Your only Son to atone for our sins (Dan. 9:24,
1 John 4:9)
CHORUS
Glory to the Father, Glory to the Son,
Glory to The Spirit- Three and Yet One
One in Your essence, Three in Your Person
The same in Your nature, distinct in Your working
Oh my soul- behold the wonder of the Trinity
Blessed be the Trinity, Oh, what a mystery!
I’ll stand amazed for the rest of my days
Pouring out my heart in Triune praise

How Awesome is the Lord Most High?

How awesome is the Lord most High?  How much we ought to praise and to glorify Him for All that He is and all that He has done. You know I can look at my life before Christ and look at the time in my life when I came to Christ, and look at my life now and say it was nothing of myself, it was all Christ, and Christ alone.   The Lord saved me and began working in my life in a Pentecostal church, and then in an Independent Fundamental Baptist church.  So much changed in my life, and my thinking and understanding of Scripture, and now again as I look on the past year, so much has changed again.  God has led me out of the IFB movement and into a Reformed, Southern Baptist church.  It is not a matter of the IFB movement vs. Reformed, but a matter of doctrine.  My view of God has been so highly exalted, and I see things I have never seen before.  All Glory goes to God, because if not for Him opening my eyes to His Word, I would not understand it nor would I be sitting here writing.  Now I know that I am settled in knowing that Scripture clearly teaches what today is commonly called “Calvinism” or “The Doctrines of Grace.”  These doctrines are settled and clearly evident in Scripture.  Now God has allowed me to begin reading and looking at Scripture on the topics of Dispensationalism, and Covenant theology, as well as Amillenialism.  All of these issues fly in direct contradiction to the majority of IFB’rs.  The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  This is my heart’s desire with my life.  So I want nothing more than to be biblical and the more I have read on these aforementioned topics the more I am beginning to see that they’re Scriptural.  That not only is “Calvinism” Scriptural but so is Covenant theology, and Amillienialism.  I don’t know enough about it to teach it per say, but the more I read Scripture the more that it makes sense. In everything God deserves all the Glory!

This all leads me to review all that I have been taught since the Lord saved me almost 9 years ago.  It leads me to wonder about all those who have taught me and preached to me completely contrary to what I am begninng to see as Scriptural.  Are they just mistaken in their understanding or are they purposely subverting the truth to suit their own agenda?  I do not know with each person, but I do know that when one’s views about the depravity of man, salvation, and regeneration are completely man-centered so will everything else.  This I believe holds true with these topics as well.

I attended an IFB school and church for several years before God graciously opened my eyes to the truth of His Word and the Doctrines of Grace.  God greatly used this time in my life to grow in Him.  But at the time it was a very difficult decision to make but made easier by the fact that I knew that’s what the Lord wanted me to do. I have complete peace about leaving that all behind, even after working for so long and coming so close to my degree.

I have been asked about what they’re teaching and preaching, and what I think of it.  It is not a matter of what I think of it, but a matter of what Scripture has to say.  Any teaching and preaching that takes away glory from God and gives it to man, and says that man somehow has a part in his salvation, and that he is not as wicked and depraved as Scripture says he is, is just plain heresy.  It is blasphemous to say that Scripture says that somehow wicked man in his fallen nature can some how choose to accept or reject Christ.  These man-centered doctrines is as Paul puts it “another gospel,” and the more I read on them the more I see that they all are intertwined with one another.

These are just some things that I have been thinking about and I pray this causes all who have read this to go and search the Scriptures, and may God be glorified in it all.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Some brief thoughts on God’s Sovereignty

As I continue to read and study the Scriptures, there is one amazing Truth I cannot get away from.  IT is the truth of God’s Sovereignty.  This is one of, if not the most fundamental doctrines to understand.  God is Sovereign.

Psalm 65: 3-4  “When inquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions. Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts!  We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!”

It struck me the phrase, “you choose to bring near, to dwell in your courts.”  We know from the words of Christ in Matthew that He says, “All authoirty in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”   Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, has all power, and authority in this world, and that includes over you and I.  I know, I know, man does not like that thought.  Man doesn’t want to give up his power and control.  We like to make prayers to God as a Calvinist, but when it comes to Salvation, it is man’s choice.  How can this be when man is dead in his trespasses and sins, and is at enmity with God?

We know that Jesus Christ died on the Cross to atone for the sins of men, but which men?  Well if we are honest with the Scriptures we will see that he atoned for the sins of His people, His sheep.  Those He chose to die for are the ones, whose sins He atoned for.  How could He have atoned for the sins of some man who is in Hell?  If this be true, then He died in vain and His blood was wasted.  Would it not also stand to reason, that if Christ said that He is going to prepare a place for us (John 14), that He would know exactly who He was building it for?

The Sovereignty of God is one of the most comforting things in all of Scripture to understand and get ahold of.  When we understand that we are NOT in control, that God has all things under His control, and there is not one maverick molecule in all the world, that we can rest in that, and in essence,  rest in Him.

Wedding Dress…

Here is a song by Derek Webb called Wedding Dress.  It is a powerful song with some hard lyrics that I pray causes you as it has me to search within my own heart and examine my own relationship with the Lord….May it be used for HIS glory…

Some reflection…

As I sit here this morning with a coffee, and the quiet of the morning, my mind wanders.  It is always thinking.  As I have sat and spent some time in God’s Word, I think even more and the Lord calls other things to mind as well.  I am grateful and thankful to God for His Mercy, Grace, and Love toward me.  I am reading through Jeremiah, and all through the book so far, it is so much about what God is doing, about His justice and judgement.   I read through passages in Ephesians, and Romans, and realize all the more just how undeserving I am of God’s Mercy and Grace.  The thought that He chose me, and that all He does is for His own glory and pleasure.  That somehow He gets glory and pleasure out of having saved my poor wicked sinful soul.  Nothing is more comforting and reassuring to me than to know that God chose me, and I did not choose Him.  How could I anyway? …In my lost condition, I was dead in my sins, doing nothing but sinning.  I was enslaved to it, in complete bondage to it.  I was at enmity with God, so how could I have of my own free will chosen Him?  It is impossible.  All those who say that it is, are taking Glory away from God and giving it to man.  I know that it has been so long since I have posted anything, and shame on me for not using this blog more, all to bring glory to the name of the Lord…..May all glory be given to the Lord Jesus Christ for the work that He is doing in this world.  Soli deo Gloria!

Good Thoughts After the Election…

God is Sovereign and in control and has appointed the man He wants in office.

Psa 2:1-4  Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.

His Ways Are Not Our Ways…Isaiah 55:8-9

God has been working in my life recently in ways I would have never dreamed of.  There have been and continue to be many challenges and trials, but God is revealing more of Himself to me everyday.  God has shown me so much in regard to the Doctrines of Grace, and words cannot express the change that He has made in my life, despite all those “Arminians” around me who tell me I am flat wrong, and that I have been doing nothing but following after other men.  I beg to differ, and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has shown Himself to me, as I have stuided His Word, and only His Word, and have been led by the Holy Spirit in these matters.  My view of Him, my thirst and desire for Him, and my Salvation, mean so much more, and have been so much the more highly exalted and all the Glory belongs to Him.  Soli Deo Gloria!

With that said here is something I have written to help others understand a bit more how God has so graciously worked in my life…

The Lord through His Word began to show me more clearly that my salvation in Him was and is wholly of Him and nothing of myself.  That when I was lost I was just as Romans 3 tells us that, “There is none righteous no not one, there’s none that understandeth, there’s none that seeketh after God.”….and that my heart was, well that is as Jeremiah says “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.”  When I was lost, the wrath of God was abiding on me because of my unrighteousness and ungodliness (Romans 1), and that I was dead spiritually, “dead in my sins and trespasses” doing nothing but sin (Ephesians 1), and that I was, a “natural man” not able to receive the things of God (I Corinthians 1-2).  I was enslaved, in bondage to my sin, and there was nothing in and of myself, in all my wickedness and sinfulness to gain my freedom from being in bondage to sin.   We see this truth so clearly evident in the apostle Paul, in Acts 9, 22 & 26 with testimony given of his conversion, and then again in Galatians 1.  God completely changed his life, there was nothing he did, when God came to him on that Damascus Rd. He repented and believed on Christ but only after God came to him and changed him for it says that he fell down and was trembling (Acts 9 22, 26), and that “it pleased God to reveal His Son” in him (Galatians 1).  He got up on the Damascus Rd and asked the Lord what He wanted him to do.  Yet previous to that was persecuting the church.  Paul did a 180 degree turnaround, all because God came in and quickened him and made him alive, and he saw himself for what he truly was, because he saw God for who He is, and could do nothing but run to Him in faith, believing on Christ.  And the amazing thing is that Paul gives testimony in Galatians that God had separated him from his mother’s womb, and yet allowed him to live the life he did.  Why?  All so that God alone would get the glory for his changed life!……The same thing holds true for us Bill. It was our sinfulness and wickedness that kept us from God, that had us in bondage to sin, and we could nothing but sin and we were condemned already…..    As you look at your life, when God saved you was there anything you could have done to have prevented it?…Or the change He made, was it anything of yourself of completely of God?

Many preach and teach that a man is not so wicked that he cannot make a decision for or against God, in his own natural sinful state before coming to Christ.  God works on a man’s heart but it is left up to man to decide, but that does not hold true to Scripture and takes away glory from God.

When Christ came to me as a lost man, there was nothing I could have done to escape it.  I remember praying with Paul on the shuttle bus at the Crowne Plaza,  and making a profession of faith but when I left and went to school in SC, I lived a wicked, wicked life.  There was no change, there was no evidence of my salvation (James 2).  I was lost, and thought I was saved b/c I had prayed that prayer.  But when the Lord led me home, (He was in control the whole time for He is Sovereign), it was at some point when I was going to Solid Rock and hearing the preaching of the Word of God that He changed my life.  The sin that I once loved, (for example, drinking alcohol), I now hated.  I repented of my sin, turned from it, and turned to Christ.  The only way I could have done such a thing is because He regenerated me!  He quickened me, regenerated me (Titus 3:5) and gave me faith to believe in Him, and that even the faith we have is a gift from God, (Ephesians 2) and by Grace He saved me!  I cannot explain the change in my life other than that God alone made that change when He saved me!

It is a difficult thing, and yet the most humbling to realize from studying Scripture that salvation is of God and that He does things for His own purposes and His own glory.  He is Soveriegn, “All power” is given to Him in heaven and in earth (Matthew 28) including ourselves …and it is Colossians 1:16 that says, “all things were created by Him and for Him”  In Romans 9 we read of how God had raised up Pharaoh to show forth His own power, and that He has mercy on whom He will and hardens who He wills….Paul also says in Romans 9 that God He is the Potter and we are the clay, and that He had made some vessels to honor, and some to dishonor (and this word means to the effect of vile and disgusting)….and to top it all off Paul goes on to say in verses 22-23 “What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering, the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory,”….The word : “fitted” means, to render, to fit, sound or complete….or to equip, and the word “destruction” means basically damnation.  His ways are not our ways and His ways are past finding out.  And asPaul says  Romans 9:20, who are we to question God….

We know that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for our sins and is our propitaiton, our ransom.  He is the one that redeemed us, paying for our sins on Calvary, that “God hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53).  Christ gave Himself for the church (Ephesians 5:25) and Christ says in John 10 that He gave Himself for the sheep, for His sheep, b/c Jesus says that “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me”….He says this just after He tells the unbelieving Jews that question Him, that the reason they don’t believe is b/c they’re not His sheep (John 10:26)…..When Christ died on the Cross, and shed His blood for our sins, He paid our ransom. and He is as I John 2:2 says, “…the propitiation for our sins…”….He as Matthew 20:28 says “gave His life as a ransom for many”  That He stood as our equivalent, that He didn’t die for us, He died as us.  What a wonderful and glorious thing, and when we know what He has done for us, as believers, what assurance of salvation we have!  Praise God!

How wonderful it is that God has been working in my life especially in the challenging things He has brought. My view of God has been so highly exalted through studying His Word and in the Truths from His Word I have just mentioned. Salvation in Him, and the work that He alone has done, means so much more to me now than it ever did before.  As I understand more fully what was accomplished on the Cross in the redemption of His people, of us the Lord confirmed these to be true from His Word, He began to open my eyes to seeing that these things were ,although seemingly close, contrary to what I had been taught. Even with that The Lord has used the experiences of being taught these things in great way in my life and I am so grateful and thankful to God for that.  I encourage you to study Scripture….and as you do I pray God reveals more of Himself to you, and gives you the thirst and desire for His Word that He has so graciously given me….Words can’t describe the change that His Word has made in my life in this last year.  When I think about His Word and how much more it means to me through all of this it brings tears to my eyes to think of His love, mercy and grace that He has given to me…..as the song says just a sinner saved by grace…..and the most wonderful thing about all of this is that all that He does is all for His own Glory….

May God get all the Glory through all of this, and with much love in Christ,

A poetic thought the Lord brought to mind

So helplesss we are, and from heaven we ought to be barred, but thank God for His infinite mercy, goodness and love toward me. His child, that He was not very far….Oh how He had mercy upon me, and saved my poor, wretched, sinful, hell deserving soul, and nothing I could have done, not even at the altar on a knee could have gotten me to the Cross of Calvary except it were given to me of the Father ….PRAISE GOD!!!

Which Vessel Has God Made You?…Just some thoughts …

Don’t know why I did not post this but here’s some thoughts…

Do you have any idea what you were created for?   I recently read a news article about a man who began to violently kill a complete stranger on a bus. For no apparent reason he decided to stab him repeatedly, and then after he was dead, and all the other passengers had exited the bus, he began to mutilate the body and even go as far as consuming some of the young man’s flesh.  Now I tell you that story and ask you, Do you think that man intended on doing that when he woke up that morning?  Or do you think the victim had in mind that, that would happen to him that day?…You say well that was just pure wickedness, pure evil, and I would never do something like that, and that would never happen to me!  I tell you, the same wickedness and evil that was in that killer’s heart is the same evil, and wickedness that is in my own heart, and the same that is in your heart as well.

Many people have been taught that we are created in the image of God.  It says in Genesis 1:27, that God created man, that is Adam, in His own image.  Before the fall Adam was made in the likeness of God.  However in between Genesis 1 & Genesis 5 we have the fall of man, when sin enters into the world.  Then in Genesis 5 we see that again God says that Adam was created in the likeness of God, but when Adam and Eve had their son Seth, in Genesis 5:3, it says, “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:”  Seth was created in the likeness of Adam, not in the likeness of God.  We are born with a sin nature and as Romans 5:12 tells us that sin entered into the world by one man and death came upon all men by one man.  We are born fallen individuals.  Even an infant in all their cuteness and cudliness is born fallen, and full of sin and wickedness.  “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?”  Our heart is so much beyond repair, and we are so full of wickedness and sin, that in this state we can do nothing but sin.  Even in Ephesians 2:2-3 Paul says, “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;  Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”…..Look! We were dead in our sins, we could do nothing but sin!  We walked according to the course of this world and “were by nature the children of wrath”!!!  As I gave the story earlier and we can clearly see from Scripture, that each one of us in our fallen state has this same wickedness within us to live in a such a manner and the only thing that stops me from committing the most evil, wicked thing imaginable is the Grace of Almighty God!  You see as Romans 9:21 tells us that we are all taken from the same lump of clay and we are all made by the same Potter.  Scripture tells us, that some he has made for honorable use and some he has made for dishonorable use.  As Paul gives the question in verse 20 that we are not to question God.  How can we, if we are the clay and He is the Potter?  Who are we as His creation, born with a fallen nature, thanks to Adam, to even think of questioning God?!  It is such foolishness!

We must remember that we are all taken from the same lump and created by the same God.  As a Christian, what makes me so different than that man in the story earlier?  I’ll tell you it is none other than the Lord God of Heaven, who in His Mercy, sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to come to die.  He came to die for the sins of men, to be “a ransom for many.”  What makes me different, and what makes you different if you’re one of His children, is that you know that He bought you, that He died for you, and that He has quickened you, made you alive in Christ and regenereated your dead soul, and you have repented of you sin and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.  Just as Paul was moving forward in his quest to persecute Christians on that Damascus Rd, and in the midst of this, God came to Him, and He was regenerated and could do nothing but turn from his sin and run to Christ.  There was no praying to recieve Christ, there was nothing that he did to earn this but it was bestowed upon him.  That is how he can say in Galatians 2:15-16, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen;…”  He lived a life of such wickedness in persecuting Christians, yet he says that he was separated from his mother’s womb, and that it was by God’s grace that He was called, and that Jesus Christ was revealed in him!….We see this and cannot look at Paul and say “Wow, what a wonderful Christian”, but rather we look at Paul and say, “Wow, what a mighty God!”…that he would choose to save a man such as this, that I would look in the mirror each morning and think that God would save such a one as I!