Be With Me: 7 Minutes of Biblical Wonder

Tabitha becomes a SAINT twice. Tabitha becomes a NON-saint twice. Most of us will only get ONE CHANCE TO BECOME A SAINT.  You don't need a committee.  You can do it today.

First let's start by defining terms.  We have got everything BACKWARDS.  According to the Bible a SAINT = a LIVING believer.  After we die we are called "witnesses", but never saints. Let's look at the life of Tabitha:

1. NOT A SAINT: All people start out as living NON-BELIEVERS.  No one is born a Christian.
2. SAINT = She becomes a LIVING BELIEVER.
3. NOT A SAINT:  Tabitha 'dies' (from our perspective) and becomes a witness.
4. SAINT: She is again a LIVING BELIEVER after Peter raises her from the dead.
5. NOT A SAINT: She dies again and becomes a witness and a heavenly citizen.

For most everybody else, we get only ONE OPPORTUNITY to move from NOT A SAINT to SAINT.  That is, we all get a choice to "turn to the Lord" and "believe in the Lord." It is our only chance at SAINTHOOD.  

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Life here is pretty difficult.  People get paralyzed. People get ILL. Everybody DIES.  Where is God in all of this? Why is there suffering?  Who is with me in all of this?  Does God even care?
Nope. Not gonna answer all of those in seven minutes.

Peter steps into the pain of some real people. Aeneas is from Lydda, 23 miles from Jerusalem.  Tabitha is a little further up the road in Joppa.  Peter goes both places and finds the pain and suffering of mankind.  But, God sees, God cares, and ultimately, He has made a way.

We don't know if Aeneas is/became a believer. But Tabitha is a noteworthy Christian.  Guess what? She still becomes ill and dies.  But God SEES, God KNOWS, and God is PRESENT. Spoiler alert: she doesn't get healed.  SHE GETS RESURRECTED FROM THE DEAD.  Trust me, she put this on her resume from that day forward.  It is an amazing, almost unbelievable picture of an almost unbelievable resurrection that is going to happen for believers. Listen and believe and admire.  Like, share on Facebook and Instagram.  Subscribe to your podcast provider. 

Hey, I learned something today. The Lord is a God of COMFORT.  Who knew?  Apparently not me.  And, it is OLD news. He's been in the comfort business a long time and will be in the future.  And I am supposed to be a participant as well as a recipient of this comforting.  

Comfort is part of God's CHARACTER.  It is in His DNA.  Comforting the spiritually and relationally grieving is right up His alley.  Comforting is often DELIVERED by people.  Wait, I am one of those.  I wonder if He might have a job of comfort for me in the next 2 hours.  Probably yes.  Comfort is in the Hall-of-fame-ONE-ANOTHERs.  Who knew?  Comfort one another.  

Who is the best COMFORTER you know?  Praise that person.
Who near you needs TO BE COMFORTED?  Pursue that person.
What might you seek to be comforted about?  Petition the Source of all comfort.

And subscribe, and share this word of comfort. bewithme.us

Do you ever feel like you are in a spiritual holding pattern? Like you are just WAITING for something else to happen? If so, you are in good company.  Moses, Abraham, and now SAUL all "wait" for more than a DECADE to do their big thing.

Saul gets saved and then is discipled somehow by Jesus for 3 years in Arabia.  He then goes to Jerusalem for 15 days.  They want to kill him there too.  He's apparently irritating enough and threatening enough to want to kill him in two countries.  The Jerusalem leaders send him back to TARSUS, his hometown; back to his (probably disappointed) family. 

Remember that at his conversion he was promised to "carry my name to the Gentiles".  Scholars think he was "stuck" in Tarsus for 4-10 YEARS!  Add this all up and Paul is being seasoned and slow cooked like a nice spiritual barbecue for 7-13 years!

Like Saul, don't just sit there.  "Spiritual Waiting" doesn't wait at all.  It Prepares.  It Readies. It practices BEING READY.  During this In-Between-Time, let the Lord have His way with you like a good barbecue. Share this with the best barbecuer that you know.  Subscribe on Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts or at bewithme.us

If I come back to you and your faith 1000 days from now, will it have matured?  What plans are you enacting NOW to make that happen THEN? Today's bible lesson is 1000 days long.

Saul does a few things immediately.  He gets un-blinded, he gets baptized and he starts to immediately proclaim Jesus.  Then there is a 1000 day window of time.  

We know he is persecuted.  Oh the great irony of the the HUNTER of Christians becoming the HUNTED by the Jews and King Aretas IV.  This actually speaks well of Saul's maturing over this period of time.

We know he travels east to the Roman Provence of ARABIA.  Perhaps to the wilderness, perhaps to discipleship by somebody or the Lord Himself, or perhaps to the people of this spice-trade-route-area. Maybe he listened and considered a good podcast. Clearly, Saul makes good use of this 1000 days.  He is worthy to persecute when it is all over.  Share with someone you'd like to persecute in about 1000 days.

Christmas is a little confounding. The whole concept, much less the reality of God coming down is both wonderful and scary.  Certainly we need the help.  We need it globally and in the intimate locality of our hearts.

Some day Jesus will come as the great Inter-Galactic-Champion in glory, power, destroying evil, and giving all their due in judgment. But not today.  Today is Christmas morning. Today we find Jesus as He is most ACCESSIBLE.  Let's start with that.

Jesus has come.  He has come here to help.  He has the agency and purpose to get the rescue started.  He has the power to pull it off.  He invites us to associate with Him and His people to participate.  He is identified in our passage today by Saul as God.  It is a good thing.  We need Him.

Welcome to our planet home Jesus.  Welcome to our hearts.  We make room for you today, of all days.  Merry Christmas. Confounding Christmas.

My gift to you this Christmas is MURDERERS, adulterers, the unkind, those of the wrong political party, from the wrong country, of the wrong color, wrong language, and of the evil sort.  In short, I am going to give you KNUCKLEHEADS for Christmas.

It is the best Christmas gift you'll ever get! This is the body of Christ.  These are His people.  By receiving it, you say God is THIS BIG: Big enough to welcome home sinners of LARGE sins.  Ironically, YOU NEED these people in your life.  There are no further scriptural examples of alone Christians.  It is an uncomfortable, inconvenient truth that God saves the UNRIGHTEOUS, and the evil.

Ananias has a big decision to make regarding the bad-guy-Saul.  God says he is IN.  What does Ananias say?  BROTHER Saul. Ananias got world's worst knucklehead for Christmas.  My gift to you is some knucklehead that the Lord has dragged into His kingdom as a gift to you in fellowship.  Go find this brother or sister!  Then send them this podcast. bewithme.us

By my count, Ananias gets to 8 crisis points before he decides whether he will follow and obey what the Lord asks of him.  It is always best to read these encounters as if you don't know how they will turn out.  Let's not read the stunning conclusion just yet.  Let's sit with him in his eight crisis.  

It is not everyday that Jesus appears to you in a vision and tells you to go specifically to your arch enemy.  In fact, this guy has been HUNTING him for 135 miles.  "Look for him; go to him; touch him; perform a miracle for him that you have never done before; go and fix his fellowship crisis." This is a big decision point.

Similarly, we have things to OBEY that are currently on our plate.  Likely, you too are God's "chosen instrument" to somebody for something.  How will you carry His name?  Let's sit in the hot seat with Ananias today as he decides what to do.  subscribe on Audible, Spotify, or any of about 25 other directories where you can get this podcast daily.  

Anyone outside of FELLOWSHIP is in CRISIS.  There is essentially NO SUCH THING in the functioning Body of Christ. Fellowship is defined today as sitting KNEE TO KNEE with those in His church. When Saul is converted, he has no Christian friends.  ZERO.  Nada.

In fact, he's been arresting those who "call on His name."  Technically, Saul should arrest himself, but that is another matter.  What the picture to take home today is Saul, blind, hungry, thirsty and ALONE.  He's one of the only guys in history to get SAVED OUTSIDE the body of Christ; outside of the functioning Church.  Looking at him before he gets connected with the Church is such a poignant tableau.  We would do best to stare at it for a moment.

Are you outside of His body of believers?  Do you sit KNEE TO KNEE with people at church?  If you are just sitting shoulder to shoulder, you are doing exactly ½ of what you are supposed to be doing. You are ½ of Saul sitting there hungry, thirsty, and ALL ALONE.  

Who do you sit knee to knee with?  Send them this podcast.  Share, like, repost, bewithme.us

Saul, like lots of people, thinks Jesus is definitely dead and definitely NOT resurrected.  His actions of murderous threats, accessory to murder, probable murder, murderous consent, imprisoning, and beating followers of Jesus are perfectly consistent with his thoughts.  Then Jesus shows up.

After hearing His voice, he still cannot believe it. "Who are you, Lord?"  A: "I am Jesus".  So here is what that means in Saul's head:
1. Jesus is alive
2. Jesus is resurrected
3. I was WRONG about points number one and two

Saul is known.  Saul is exposed.  Saul is named. Saul is surprised. Saul is judged as being wrong. Likewise, we too will all have that moment when the Lord is pleased to reveal Himself in a super-clear way.  Be ready.  Don't be wrong.  Subscribe to this podcast to know Him better.