Acts 26:17a-18 “I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” (NIV)
Paul’s testimony before
King Agrippa revealed his personal commission from Jesus. In Acts 26, we read Paul’s
confession of his inhumane religious zeal which led him to fanatically pursue, persecute,
and punish any Christ believers in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Galilee, and
even beyond their borders. He was on a one-man crusade which had a single
purpose: to annihilate the Christian sect wherever it occurred.
Paul truly believed he was
working for God until Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and changed him
completely. What Paul thought was right in God’s eyes was actually wrong; what
Paul felt God was compelling him to do was a religious delusion. Christ humbled
Paul with a temporary blindness in order to get him to fully reconsider his fanatical
ways. His personal mission was no longer valid; Christ’s commission for Paul to
lead the Gentiles to the light of God had only just begun.
Over the decades of
ministry that I have experienced, I now recognize those similar times of
religious zeal and self-righteousness which took me off Christ’s path in order
to pursue my own agenda, feelings, and self-constructed faith. Like Paul, I
honestly thought I was doing God’s great work, but in reality, I was shaping a
religious idol which reflected more about me rather than Jesus. When I dare to
look back, I regret some of the things I said, wrote, drew, and did which
perfectly expressed my zeal, but imperfectly witnessed to Christ’s compassion.
If I knew then what I know now, things would have been different, but I was
blinded by my own self-assurance, self-opinion, and self-focused faith that I
could not see where I was so intolerably wrong.
Sadly, I see the same religious
zeal hurting powerless people instead of healing them today. I see Christ’s
compassion being cast aside in order to make people conform to religious rules.
Instead of being the way to bring people into the light of God’s love, I see
faith being abused to fearfully overshadow and engulf others in a destructive
darkness which occurs when ignorance, intolerance, and religious zeal are forcefully
combined to demonize, marginalize, and pulverize others into submitting to a
regulated religion – the very same thing that Paul was guilty of empowering and
unleashing, from which only the true Spirit of Christ could liberate him.
May Jesus release us from
the same.
Point to ponder: Does
my faith lead people to the light of God’s love? If so, how? If not, why not?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, free
us from the fetters of ignorance, intolerance, and fanaticism and lead us to
compassion, care, and grace. Use our faith to heal and not to harm, to love and
not to loathe, to help and not to hate. In Your Holy Name, we humbly pray.
Amen.
John Stuart is the pastor
of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. You can see what the
congregation is doing by visiting the church website at www.erinpres.org.
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