Shifting Gears to Our Own Situation

It all sounds rather thrilling when applied to Paul. He seems to cruise along in a sort of spiritual "overdrive," while we painfully make our way in low low, sometimes not quite sure that we're moving at all. And yet, Paul's experience is not all that "strange" to us. To be sure, we do not need to be converted from Jewish legalism. But we may need to be converted from a kind of Christian legalism, a religion that tells us that we must be good boys and girls and do the following eight things without fail if we want God to love us. We may even need to be converted from a kind of conventional Christianity which is dull, drab, and dreary. And whether we go through the kind of spectacular experience of conversion Paul did or not isn't very important. What is important is that somehow or other we come to the place of being able to say with Paul, "Life means Christ to me." For when that begins to happen, then life can get just as exciting for us in our day as it did for Paul in his.