Passion For Jesus

Friend, do you believe with your head or with your heart?

Jesus told this story as a way of showing that a passion for Him is the true Way.

He started in this way..."There once was a rich young ruler, (chief, prince etc.) who said he believed but asked for time to go home and put all his affairs in order."

Friend, this type of person resembles many of us who believe with the head and want to be included in God's Plan, reap all the benefits but still have one foot in the world, doing what it is we love that is worldly.

The expectation of God is that we fall so in love with our Saviour that we drop everything, turn around and follow Him.

A good example of this type of submitting to the Will of God is the Apostle Paul who was highly educated and a rising star within the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. He was given a mission to bring to "justice" those Jews who were believers of Jesus ( after his death and Resurrection.)

At that time his name was Saul. He had a believer named Stephen, stoned to death. Stephen's last words to him were of forgiveness. And Saul went with the men he was given, with great zeal and purpose, but on the road to Damascus he was apprehended by God in the form of Jesus, and was left blind.

He saw a vision and Jesus spoke to him. 

A believer named Ananais was sent to him to help him and his sight was restored.

This episode in his life caused him to become a believer. He could not deny the vision that he saw and the words that Jesus spoke to him. His men saw the Light but did not hear the words.

Saul used that same passion for God in spreading the Word about Jesus to many nations and peoples from then on.

Because he was learned in the Holy Scriptures, he was able to understand the prophecies and know that God had fulfilled many of them in the carpenter from Galillee. He understood that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah.

His writings are a great part of the New Testament and bless the reader mightily in their teachings to this very day.

Read Acts 22 as Paul writes about his conversion from Judaism to Christianity.  

He met the risen Christ!

It changed him from a murderous highminded believer of Holy God the Father to a forgiven, born again believer in the Son Jesus, who is the Messiah the Jews did not recognize when He came in humble form; even though He gave them many indications that He was in fact their Messiah.

Ask yourself, "Have I too, done this? Rejected Him because I have not recognized the Truth?"