Isaiah - Verse By Verse | Walking through Ephesians

Walking through Ephesians - Day 53

versebyverse | December 18, 2007 19:33

Thought: To me, Paul's captivation by God Who chooses to use humble people for noble ends is enthralling!

Question: Could I receive God's power and become His servant?

Scripture: Ephesians 3:8 (NIV): "Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,"

Paul realizes the size of the responsibility given him. The entire non-Jewish world needs to hear the gospel now. His sense understands the expansiveness God is suggesting. Paul keenly feels the burden for these souls. This burden is, no doubt, deeply impressed into him also because of his own past. He used to hunt down "anti-Jews", as it were. Now he will seek to save them. What a contrast! It is because of this past of his that he calls himself "the least of all God's people." He persecuted Christians, yet God saved him. He considered himself on the lowest rung of the ladder for having formerly hurt Christians. Yet God graced him for the largest task given in Christian history: reaching the now accepted Gentiles for the first time. The door was opened by God. On the other side stood the largest crowd of unbelievers ever--the Gentiles! Thus Paul, "the least", receives "the largest" task of all. How like God Who works impossibilities out to achieve total opposites!

Besides the size of the job and the size of the change in Paul we also see the large size of what is preached: "unsearchable." How can Paul put it into words? But what better man is there for the task than one who himself has been hugely transformed and altered by God? Yes, Paul is called to a huge task, but God has enabled him in an equally huge way, and I would venture to say the same is true for each one of us called to our various tasks. Paul will find language to express "the unsearchable riches of Christ" because he has experienced an unsearchably rich conversion.

Prayer: Only by Your transforming power, dear Lord, can we even ask to be used by You for our fellowman. Thank You for using us, Lord. Amen.