Thursday July 29th - Don’t limit God
Today's reflections are by Paul Harcourt
On 4th November 1995, Yigal Amir, a young Jewish student, stepped forward and assassinated the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin. He believed that Rabin, by exchanging Israeli land for peace, was leading Israel to devastation. Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, suggests that he might be a modern parallel for the Apostle Paul before his conversion. Saul, as he was then, was one of many who were concerned that the preaching of the new Christian movement would destroy the Jewish religion. The temple would be marginalised, practices of the Law would be neglected, and God’s chosen people would end up indistinguishable from the Gentiles.
Their solution was to cleanse Israel of Gentiles as well as all those Jews with lax attitudes towards the Law. As Paul says here, in this stage of his life, he therefore “intensely persecuted” and “tried to destroy” the Church; no doubt with the blood of many martyrs such as Stephen on his hands (Acts 8:1).
People like that seldom listen, so a radical conversion like Paul’s is even more miraculous. Perhaps it should simply remind us that nothing is impossible with God. Don’t give up praying for people, or write them off by saying “they’d never be interested”! No one is beyond His reach - which means that everyone we meet today, no matter how unlikely, is someone Jesus died for and longs to know.
Lord, help me to see people as You see them and not through my own prejudices or lack of faith. Amen.