Responding to Jesus

Galatians 1:11-17 I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.
 
 SOME of you reading this can testify to the way Jesus has powerfully changed your life. You were living a depraved life far from Jesus when the Holy Spirit touched your heart to recognize your sin and to know your Savior. Your testimony is true and can be verified with evidence from those who knew you before your salvation.
    Personal testimony is indisputable evidence of God and his saving grace. Perhaps one of history’s greatest testimonies is the apostle Paul’s life. He defended his apostleship with a summary of God’s great change on his life. Paul was a Jew and a citizen of Rome. He was very intelligent, a child of privilege who became a highly respected Pharisee. Passionate for Judaism and its law, he was hateful toward Christians. His purpose was to persecute and destroy the newborn church.
    But then God revealed his eternal plan for Paul. The Lord had set apart Paul for this work. By his grace, the Father revealed the Son to Paul, and Jesus commissioned Paul to preach to the Gentiles. Paul testified to Jesus’ call: Acts 26:15 “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. 16 ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them.’”
    No one in the church went to Paul to recruit him to be an apostle. And he did not learn the gospel from any other apostle. Only God can call an apostle, and only Jesus can train an apostle. Paul testifies, “I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.
    His time in Arabia, a desert-like environment, was time with the Lord through prayer, meditation, and study of the Scriptures. It seems, too, Jesus appeared to him there to teach his appointed apostle. Paul returned to Damascus from that solitary time reformed from a man of law to an apostle of grace. It seems he ministered in Damascus, the site of his conversion, for about three years.
          Paul wanted the Galatian churches to know God himself had sent Paul to proclaim the gospel. They needed to listen to him because he had come directly from God’s command. When the Galatians would decide, “Who do we believe?” Paul earnestly hoped his testimony would influence the churches to hold his teachings above all others who attempted to change the gospel.