Grace according to Paul - Part 1

If you had to choose an apostle or disciple to model your lifestyle on, who would you pick?

My choice is Paul. It impresses me how passionately he fell in love with the Lord once he understood what Christ came to do. He even wrote "the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ" (Galations 1:11-12).

You see, the transition from law to grace was difficult for jewish believers to accept and adopt. A new group was formed by some and they called themselves Judaizers. While they "accepted" this salvation by grace belief, they still insisted that many of the old covenant practices should be practiced. Paul wrote the epistle to the Galations "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel - which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!" (Galations 1:6-9)

Paul was vehement in his message to the point of vowing eternal condemnation on ANYONE who preached a different form of salvation and Christian lifestyle. I too am passionate in my belief of God's love. His kind of love is so far above and beyond mankind's love that it is almost a mockery for us to use that word in our vocabulary. God's definition of love is a heart-action verb whereas we use the word to describe a feeling like: "Oh, I LOVE strawberries and whipped cream".

But to get back to Paul, I find myself proud of him in his steadfast devotion to this message of grace