COME AS YOU ARE...
	No person, apart from Jesus Himself, shaped the history of Christianity like the apostle Paul. Even before he was a believer, his actions were significant. His frenzied persecution of Christians following Stephen's death got the Church started in obeying Christ's final command to take the Gospel worldwide. Paul's personal encounter with Jesus changed his life! He never lost his fierce intensity, but from then on it was channelled for the Gospel. Paul was very religious. His training under Gamaliel was the finest available. His intentions and efforts were sincere. He was a good Pharisee, knew the Bible, and sincerely believed that this Christian Movement was dangerous to Judaism. Thus Paul hated the Christian faith and persecuted Christians without mercy. Paul got permission to travel to Damascus to capture Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem. But God stopped him in his hurried tracks on the Damascus Road. Paul personally met Jesus Christ, and his life was never the same! Until Paul's conversion, little had been done about carrying the Gospel to non-Jews. Philip had preached in Samaria and to an Ethiopian man; Cornelius, a Gentile, was converted under Peter; and in Antioch in Syria, some Greeks had joined the believers. When Barnabas was sent from Jerusalem to check on this situation, he went to Tarsus to find Paul and bring him to Antioch, and together they worked among the believers there. They were then sent on a missionary journey, the first of three Paul would take, that would carry the Gospel across the Roman Empire. The thorny issue of whether Gentile believers had to obey Jewish laws before they could become Christians caused many problems in the early Church. Paul worked hard to convince the Jews that Gentiles were acceptable to God, but he spent even more time convincing the Gentiles that they were acceptable to God. The lives Paul touched were changed and challenged by meeting Christ through him. God did not waste any part of Paul - his background, his training, his citizenship, his mind, or even his weaknesses. Are you willing to let God do the same for you? You will never know all He can do with you until you allow Him to have all that you are! God does not waste our time - He will use our past and present so that we may serve Him with our future! - Life Application Bible, 1988, Tyndale House Publishers.