MERRY MONDAY BY PARRIS
“I have not yet reached my goal, and I am not perfect. But Christ has taken hold of me. So I keep on running and struggling to take hold of the prize.” Phil. 3:12 CEV
The Apostle Paul never looked back from the Damascus Road experience. If anything, it grew deeper into his spirit. Brilliant light blinded him and went deep into his soul; from there he became a marked man. So much so, he used the terminology that he was seized by Christ, or taken hold of.
Redemption is so personal, unrehearsed, just for the individual concerned. So personal that the person involved knows Christ appeared. Once Christ is seen our former self appears worthless and crumbles away. Paul was revolutionized when he realized his “lower gains” had to be abandoned in order to gain Christ. He was seized by Christ.
Studies in the Language of Paul says, “he fell into complete captivity to the personality of Christ. Christ enthralled his will, his inner consciousness. It not only diverted the course of his life, it remade the man. He was arrested for the supreme object, an ideal life. It was a life of faith in the Son of God. He had set foot within a sphere whose distances were infinite whose borders no man knew. The life of Christ was a life of far extending horizons.”
How has the Almighty gripped you? Was it just to bring forgiveness in your life? To bring you into a life of acceptance, abundance and prosperity? My friend! If Jesus Christ has laid hold of you, there are great purposes lying at the back of that grip. Purposes that you must dig for as in treasure hidden in field. The fires of life will draw them out and you too will find yourself not only seized by him but all else will appear but rubbish.
McClaren adds, “When He lays hold of us, He comes like the angel that came to Peter in the prison in the dark and awakened him out of his sleep and said ‘Rise! and follow me.’ It is only when we get out into the street, and have been with Him for awhile, and the daylight begins to stream in, that we see clearly the face of our Deliverer, and know Him for all that He is. This knowledge is not the sort of knowledge that you can get by thinking, or get out of a book. It is the knowledge of experience. It is the knowledge of love, it is the knowledge of union, and it is in order that we may know Christ, that He lays his hand upon us.”