And he fell on the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? (Acts 9:4)
As believers, it is very common to talk about our desire to, or belief that, we are “serving the Lord.” Although we should all aspire to serve, the reality is that in our experience we may actually be short of any tangible, direct encounters with the One that we claim we want to serve. In many ways, our own definition of serving often puts us in a similar state to Saul — zealous, religious, and lacking a true burden and heart for the Lord’s desire in man. Like Saul, our mentality can actually be a hindrance to the Lord —“persecuting” this One who loves us and a damage to ourselves — “kicking against the goads” (26:14). Indeed, He is not seeking a work from us but for the nurturing of something living in us.
On the surface, Saul was more faithful to the law and commandments than most believers. Yet for Saul to become useful, He needed to meet the Lord. And when he encountered the Lord on the road to Damascus, his life was changed forever. In that moment, Saul was no longer a self-righteous zealot but a person who received and lived by an inward revelation. God’s Person coming to him as light brought Saul into a realization process — a season of seeding for his being to receive life as an eternal deposit from the Lord — that ushered him into a “living poured out” to serve God’s household (Phil. 2:17). Saul was no longer a blind zealot but instead became Paul — a nursing mother (1 Thess. 2:7), travailing for this One, for Christ, that eternal deposit, to be formed in His people (Gal. 4:19), the very ones he had been religiously persecuting.
Today, what is our constitution? Are we, like Saul, operating according to our religious concepts about the Lord, or, like Paul, have we been shined upon to receive a true seeding — Christ revealed in us as the life of this eternal household? Without this seeding in us, we have no way to be true servants of our Lord as mothers, receiving, travailing until this seed is mature, full-grown as a true testimony, as His beloved on the earth today.
(Above are notes of fellowship taken from a gathering on 7/28/2024, not reviewed by the speaker.)