Daily Devotional | Radical Transformation

Chuck Colson had one of the most dramatic public testimonies of the 1970s. Serving as Special Counsel to President Nixon, he became known as Nixon’s “hatchet man” and one of the most powerful people in the White House. But after Watergate, he became the first member of Nixon’s cabinet to serve prison time. In 1973, Colson became a Christ-follower. He followed God’s calling to begin Prison Fellowship International.

As extraordinary as Colson’s testimony is, the Apostle Paul’s is even more so. Paul assumed the Galatians had heard about his notorious rampage against the church (v. 13). And Paul admits that his goal had not been simply to hinder the body of Christ. He had been intent on destroying it. Paul also reiterates his motivation at that time. He had been “zealous for the traditions of [his] fathers” (v. 14). That zeal presumed that Paul had the favor of God. Paul had been like the valedictorian of his class, “advancing in Judaism beyond many of [his] own age” (v. 14).

However, the Lord intervened. The simple phrase “but when God” (v. 15) communicates a radical and complete transformation that happened by divine instigation. God’s call had been on Paul’s life even before he was born, but for a different purpose. The Galatians likely would have connected Paul’s claim to Jeremiah’s similar assertion in Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Paul makes it clear that God’s call was the result of His grace, not his credentials. He also underscores that his conversion came simultaneously with his calling, “that he might preach [Jesus] among the Gentiles” (v. 16). He was converted and called for a specific purpose and his calling was complete, without any human confirmation. His call came directly, and only, from God.