Jessica Robbins

It’s been a minute since I’ve posted anything on the blog, and I was looking through some of my drafts this morning, and found this one from 2017. Hopefully these thoughts from seven years ago will encourage you today. 🙂

The past several months I’ve been thinking a lot about the conversion of Saul to Paul.  I mean, what causes a religious terrorist to have a complete 180 turnaround and become the most successful and well known missionary for the very cause that he once zealously persecuted?

What exactly did Paul see on that road to Damascus when the glory of heaven shone around him?  What did the voice of Jesus sound like that it brought upon him such immediate conviction and repentance.

After encountering the Son of God on that road, Saul was blinded and didn’t eat or drink for 3 whole days.  He waited on the Lord, and while praying and waiting and fasting he received a vision of Ananias coming to him and praying for him to receive his sight again.  Ananias obeyed the Lord (after a little discussion and hesitation about the matter) and went to Saul- to go pray for a terrorist that had the authority to put him to death.  Then Saul’s sight was restored, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and was baptized.  It was quite an intense 3 days for him I’m sure.

We know that Paul went on to write almost half of the books in the New Testament.  He planted churches all over the known world and suffered immensely for the sake of the gospel.  He endured beatings and shipwrecks and stoning and much more because he caught a glimpse of the worthiness of Jesus on that road to Damascus.

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith – that I may know Him and power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

Philippians 3:7-11 (ESV)

Seriously – he counted all gain he had as a loss for the sake of Christ?!  He called everything rubbish that he had given up for the sake of the gospel.  He says that gaining Christ and being found in Him is of surpassing worth.

This is what happens when we begin to shift our gaze to Someone higher than ourselves. This is what happens when we actually get a glimpse of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of man. Our priorities begin to shift. Sometimes it’s a drastic, 180 turnaround. For most others it’s a gradual change in thinking and the way that we live.

One thing is certain; an encounter with Jesus changes us. If we truly come into contact with this perfect, holy Savior we can never be the same.

It is said that we worship according to our level of revelation of who Jesus really is. If we have no revelation of Him, how can we rightly love and serve Him? If we see Him, even a shadow of who He really is, I believe that we will feel the glorious and awesome weight of His worthiness. Our lives get wrecked in the best of ways when we encounter this Man and His unconditional love and supernatural holiness. We begin to see that He is really worthy of it ALL.

He is worthy of my time.

He is worthy of my money,

He is worthy of my attention.

He is worth more than my family.

He is worthy of being inconvenienced for.

He is worth being uncomfortable for.

He is worthy of my devotion.

He is worthy of my total allegiance.

He is worthy of all of my resources.

He is worth more than man’s approval and what others think of me.

He is worthy of my very life, if that’s what he desires.

He is worth it all. EVERYTHING I have to give. It’s all garbage compared to His glory and goodness and the surpassing greatness of knowing Him and being found in Him.

Paul knew Jesus.

“But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me”

II Timothy 1:12b

He had His eyes fixed on Jesus and understood the purpose of this life and the life to come. He instructed Timothy,

“Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.”

II Timothy 2:3-4

He also knew the cost of living for Jesus.

“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

II Timothy

I am more and more convinced that finishing this race on earth victoriously is intrinsically tied to our revelation of the worthiness of Jesus.

We should continually be positioning ourselves to hunger and thirst for a deeper revelation of Jesus.  How does this happen though?  How can we stir up desire for Him?

I think that one of the keys is to make more room for Him in our lives.  We can do things like increase our Bible reading time, meditate on the Word, be still before Him and actually listen, put on some worship music and intentionally focus our mind and heart on Him, fast (food, social media, entertainment).

If we have no hunger for Jesus, then that means that we are full on something else.

It’s good to identify what we are filling our minds and souls and bodies with so that we can evaluate whether or not we are feeding ourselves with the things of earth or with the things of heaven.  This will drastically change our perspective and our priorities and even our dreams and desires.

Cultivating a hunger to know Jesus will lead us into more depth of relationship with Him which will give us a deeper revelation of who He is.  He will become someone that we actually know and not just someone we know things about.  Then we will truly see the worthiness of Jesus Christ.

“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”

Jeremiah 29:13

We must ask these crucial questions:

What is Jesus worth to me?

What is Jesus worth to you?

I don’t know about you, but I long to be like Paul and be able to say at the end of my life:

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

II Timothy 4:7

Grace and peace to you today, my friends.

May you find seek Him and find Him today.  

He really is worthy of it all.