We have all seen those “before and after” commercials. Someone comes on screen with a big smile holding up a pair of gigantic blue jeans. He says, , “These are the jeans I used to wear before I lost 200 hundred pounds on the Suddenly Slim miracle diet. It’s easy. It worked for me and it can work for you!”These ads peddle everything from diets to hair-growth products and more. And the testimonies are always the same. Such products can hardly qualify as miracles. They may be impressive, but they do not qualify as a miracle.Only the supernatural work of God can bring truly miraculous changes, and that is what took place in the apostle Paul’s life, which is the quintessential “before and after” story. Before his conversion he was known as Saul of Tarsus, a meticulous observer of the Law, a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was a gifted student —the cream of the crop— and studied under the most notable of Jewish scholars at that time, Gamaliel (Acts 22:3).His misguided zeal for the Law led him to hate Christians and persecute them. Then on his journey to persecute believers in Damascus he ran head-on into the blinding grace of God (Acts 9:1- 19). This shocked him to the core. He fasted and prayed for three days, until a disciple sent by God came to him to tell him what God had in store for him.Ananias told him to “be baptized, and wash away your sins…” (Acts 22:16). This transformed him into a champion of the gospel, and he rejected his former way of life; He now preached that Christ alone makes people righteous. Paul gave his life for the movement he had once tried to destroy. Now that’s a miraculous change.Paul writing to Timothy couldn’t help but launch into a testimony of the application of that wonderful gospel in his own life (1 Tim. 1:11-17). So he declared three things: that he was thankful for what he had become; that he was remorseful for what he had been; and that he was joyful for what made it all possible.No wonder Paul beamed with gratefulness — just look at what Christ did for him! He noted that his energy and power for ministry came from Christ himself. He stated that Christ considered him faithful. They he recounted that he was “formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man. But ...
