Near is not Near Enough

Since the beginning of another glorious Christmas season, I have felt led to pursue Paul. I desire to know more about his life and ministry. Both are to be found in Luke's Book of Acts as well as the letters of Paul himself.

This evening there is an account I want to share which I will borrow from my own personal hand written faith journal I had begun last January, mainly because I have come to regard Paul as the greatest Christian disciple who ever lived. I feel he was by far the greatest of the Lord's followers simply because he not only lived for Christ, but he lived Christ. When he wrote to the believers in Philippi, "for to me to live is Christ," he truly meant it. He was a man fully controlled and consumed by Christ.

But Paul was not always this way, as none of us who are God's people can truthfully say we were always God's elect people. None of us was always a Christian since the day we were born.

There was another man who came before Paul. His name was Saul, Saul of Tarsus. That was his name his parents gave him when they, by jewish tradition, presented him to the high priest to be circumcised eight days after he was born. O granted, the two were the same men. Before Paul was Paul, he was Saul. Saul was a pharisee, a religionist of the strictest sort. He believed in one God, and he fervently studied the law and the prophets. He could likely quote every passage word for word, as some folks even now can quote the Bible verse by verse, cover to cover. And if ever there might be a man as near to knowing all a man could hope to know about God, it was Saul of Tarsus. But as we hopefully will discover, near is not near enough.

Saul was a young Jew who studied at the feet of Gamaliel. That experience might well be likened to a young person having the honor and priviledge of studying at Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. Saul had grown to a level of knowledge so prestigious that he won the admiring attention of both his peers and teachers. And Luke tells us in Acts 7 & 8 that he willing had a hand in the presecutions that began to be waged against those who trusted and followed Christ as Lord and Savior. Chapter 9 begins with Saul "breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord." And to prove he meant business, he went to the high priest and obtained letters (we may call them warrants) he could take along with him to Damascus that would permit him to bring back to Jerusalem any he found of this way."

Then all of sudden, the situation changes. There he is on the road to damascus, and as Brother Luke tells us, Saul "came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven. And he (Saul) fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, "Saul,
saul, why persecutest thou me?"

Saul was near Damascus when this occurred. I feel here that i need to say before the Lord got hold of me and turned my miserable life around, He had to bring me near that turning point in my life. Once I was saved, I was saved and forgiven all at once. But He had to bring to a point in which I was near enough to that point that I was under great conviction. When Saul fell to the ground due to the blinding brightness of that heavenly light, he might not have right then been changed in his heart concerning the Lord. But he was certainly well on his way.

Now if I come off sounding like a hyperCalvinist, please understand whenever I give my salvation testimony, I do have to confess that on the night of September 10, 1978, the blessed Sunday night I was gloriously saved the Spirit of God brought such conviction tp my heart that I felt I just could not refuse Him. Let me put it this way; I did not want to refuse Him because I realized at that moment if I did, and I died in my sleep that night, I would surely lift up my eyes in hell as did the rich man in Luke 16.

Saul was near Damascus. The Lord Jesus, according to Mark, was asked by a scribe what is the first commandment of all. The Lord answered with "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is non other commandment greater than these."

The scribe then praised the Master for His answer by saying that all these were worth more than whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. When the scribe said that, Jesus said to him, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God."

But being not far or, for that matter, being near to the kingdowm, does not mean a person will enter the kingdowm when he dies. He cannot stop there, just being near the point of being saved. He must go all the way into the redeeming presence of the most holy God, confessing his need to repent (turn from sin), confess he is a lost, hell-deserving, hell-bound sinner, ane then ask the Lord Jesus to forgive and cleanse him from all unrighteousness.

I am not a sports lover, that is, basketball, football, or baseball, as far as watching games on television. I have enjoyed playing some of them, namely a friendly backyard game of touch football. but I do happen to know that if a given team loses by one point, whereby the final score is 14 to 13 , the team that lost simply lost. It does little good for the losing team to leave the field saying, "We nearly won," or, "We barely lost." Whether it be a close score or a wide one like 20 to nothing, the fact still remains that the team lost the game.

As I go about daily activities, (at this time, I am taking needed time off to enjoy the Christmas holidays), it strikes home to my heart that there are people everywhere out there, in stores, malls, merchants selling their wares, who might be like Saul of Tarsus. They are still on damascus Road, and they are near Damascus, but they just have not got there quite yet. These are seekers, and the Lord obviously deals with seekers since he did say "Seek and ye shall find, ask and ye shall receive, knock, and it shall be opened unto you." I was finally brought into the pasture of safety after spending sometime on my own Damascus Road, but I was, thanks be to Him, on that road, near Damascus.

Only please do not be deceived by the notion that being near to making that salvation decision for Christ is near enough. Near but not yet there can also put you farther back. the Spirit of god is the One who brings lost people to God, and faith in His saving grace. But in putting off that decision too many times can result in your never reaching Damascus at all. I use the name of that city here to symbolize the salvation/forgiveness/eternal life experience through and in Christ. It is my hope and prayer that anyone who reads this post will, if he or she has not yet done so, get on that road that leads to heaven one day. "Behold," the Word of god says, "Behold, now is the accepted time; Behold, now is the day of salvation."