Praise God Because

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

PRAISE GOD BECAUSE

Gal 1:18-24

18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles — only James, the Lord's brother. 20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. 21 Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only heard the report: "The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." 24 And they praised God because of me.

NIV

Much of this part of the narrative is of historic value in the sense it contains the initial travels of Paul after his conversion. We do not know what he did in those three years he spent in Arabia and Damascus. It is not recorded in the Acts of the Apostles by Luke as perhaps these three years were spent alone with the Lord, in meditation, receiving and affirming his calling to preach the gospel of the Gentiles. Luke does record that Paul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus and immediately began preaching the gospel. But that was only a couple of days out of the three years. The scholars we checked also have no clue or insight as to what Paul was doing for those three years, so again we have the sense he was learning from the Lord, he was in prayer, meditation, and communication with the Lord. But that is only our supposition. However, it would make sense, he needed time to clarify what had happened to him when Jesus appeared to him and what transpired as the result of that encounter. Maybe we could learn a lesson here about spending more time with the Lord, learning from him, clarifying our purpose, our calling. Paul does report to the Galatians as part of his testimony that he was once a persecutor of the church and now is one sent with authority to preach the gospel. The portion of his testimony which strikes a chord is the fact as although he was personally unknown to the churches of Judea and they had only heard the report about his conversion from a persecutor to one now preaching the faith and they praised God because of him. We wonder how many people we praise God for who have been converted from hating the church, to now doing wonderful acts of service to our Lord. We wonder how many people are praising God on account of us for once we were haters of the church and spoke bitterly against it, and now have been saved and are serving our Lord in whatsoever manner he calls us to. Do we praise God for each other as believers? Maybe jealousy, envy, gossip, bitterness, inability or refusal to forgive those who we think offended us or pride keep us from thanking God and praising him for each other. But whether we praise God for each other or not, we know the angels rejoice over every sinner who has come home.

Luke 15:10

10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

NIV

So then why would we not rejoice over each other, for we are all sinners who have repented and come home to the kingdom of God? We wonder how long those angels rejoiced are they still rejoicing over our repentance of some forty-five years ago. We cannot know for certain, but what we know is we should always rejoice over every sinner who has come home, and that is all of us. So again we say rejoice. Praise God because of you, because of me.