Paul’s Confession of His Previous Life

Acts 26:9-11 NLT
“I used to believe that I ought to do everything I could to oppose the very name of Jesus the Nazarene. Indeed, I did just that in Jerusalem. Authorized by the leading priests, I caused many believers there to be sent to prison. And I cast my vote against them when they were condemned to death. Many times I had them punished in the synagogues to get them to curse Jesus.  I was so violently opposed to them that I even chased them down in foreign cities.”

Paul admits to King Agrippa, Bernice, and Governor Festus as well as a large group of statesman that in his former way of life he was so zealous for God that he persecuted the new believers of Jesus the Christ. He use to believe that it was heresy to believe that Jesus could actually be the Christ.

Sending believers of Jesus to prison, agreeing when others were being put to death. He even had believers blaspheme Jesus, that had to be especially hard to remember. But Paul had changed, now, he believed that Jesus is the Christ. He had seen the light, literally!

Did he have any regrets? I’m sure, but he did not let them hold him back. Instead, he used them to keep ministering, testifying, on reaching the lost, and moving forward. He was even able to use his past life to tell people of his doubts, confusion and misguided zeal. He used his failures as a springboard to reach thousands in his day and billions through his writings.

Prayer:
Lord, some of our pasts are not pretty, in fact, most of them are messy. Don’t let our past hold us back, but help us to use our pasts to propel us to show the world, no ones perfect, but we are forgiven. In Your name Lord, Amen!