Some people lack motivation. Robert H. Hutchins said, “Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes.” Jo Brand said, “My favorite machine at the gym is the vending machine.” Bill Vaughn said, “As a nation we are dedicated to keeping physically fit — and to parking as close to the stadium as we can.” One anonymous wag asked, “How do you get a man to do sit-ups? Put the remote between his toes” (maybe a frustrated wife said that?!).
The apostle Paul was a
highly motivated individual. Even before coming to Christ, he lived a life of
full dedication to God’s service, as he (mis)understood it. Although he once
opposed and persecuted Christ and Christians, he describes himself to a mob of
Jewish people in Jerusalem (that shortly before had attempted to kill him) by
saying in Acts 22:3,
“I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, and brought up in this city at
the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law,
and was zealous toward God as you all are today.” He goes on to testify in verse 4 that
before coming to Christ, “I persecuted this Way, binding and delivering into
prisons both men and women.” Paul was never half-hearted in his service to God,
even when misguided. Later, after believing and obeying Christ’s gospel (Acts 22:16), Paul (in
prison at the time for preaching Christ – Philippians 1:12-18) wrote to Christians at
Philippi, “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for
Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of Christ
Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them
as rubbish that I may gain Christ” (3:7-8).
After being commissioned by Christ to preach the gospel, Paul testified to King
Agrippa in Acts
26:22-23, “Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this
day I stand, witnessing to small and great, saying no other things than those
which Moses and the prophets said would come — that the Christ would suffer,
that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to
the Jewish people and to the Gentiles.” And so it was — when it came to
preaching Christ and talking to people about Jesus, the apostle Paul didn’t
have an “off” button! According to strong church tradition, those who opposed
the gospel finally shut his mouth when they cut his head off outside Rome
sometime around
68 A. D.
What motivated Paul to tell the story of Jesus? What moved him and sustained him even though doing so often cost him comfort and caused him pain and even prison? Why wouldn’t he stay mum or be a “silent saint” like so many who sit on church pews today? Why was he so bent on preaching Christ? In 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 he writes about the force that compelled him to live for and tell about Jesus: “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” Paul was so gripped by the love Christ had for him that he couldn’t help loving Christ and talking about Him! What do you love to talk about most? Grandchildren? Football or other sports? Politics? Fishing and hunting? Clothes? Computers? Christians ought to talk about Christ! No power on earth can open our mouths for Christ like being gripped by His love. Are you gripped by Jesus’ love for you? Do you love Him? How long has it been since you talked about Him to someone else? Just asking.
Dan Gulley, Smithville TN
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