Being a Special Messenger from Jesus Christ

Rom. 15:16-19 

  16 I am a special messenger from Christ Jesus to you Gentiles. I bring you the Good News so that I might present you as an acceptable offering to God, made holy by the Holy Spirit. 17 So I have reason to be enthusiastic about all Christ Jesus has done through me in my service to God. 18 Yet I dare not boast about anything except what Christ has done through me, bringing the Gentiles to God by my message and by the way I worked among them. 19 They were convinced by the power of miraculous signs and wonders and by the power of God’s Spirit. In this way, I have fully presented the Good News of Christ from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum. 

 It is an awesome thing to be a 'special messenger' from someone important. From the time we were children we always looked forward to presenting a claim, or a demand, in the name of someone we considered 'important.' We don't think we are important enough, usually so we enjoy exercising the authority of another.  Most of our human impressions of such events are misguided and misunderstood. But when one has been sent by God with a message, one cannot over estimate the value of that message or the importance of the one who sent it.

Paul has been laying out the standards for the life to be lived 'in Christ' for the members of the Church at Rome, and for us as well. This message was not his own and he has clearly pointed that out at several places in the Book of Romans. In this current passage he celebrates his opportunity to bring this unsurpassable message to people whom he, and other Jews, not too many years previous, considered to be less than worthy of God's attention. Paul has made us all aware of the GRACE that we can share in, through faith in redemption from sin by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This faith creates power, joy, peace and everything most desired by people. Paul describes his enthusiasm to bring this message of great hope to them and to us in verse 17. He carefully points out that his celebration is not idle boast but his expression of joy for what God is doing and that he gets to have a part in it. Verse 19 clarifies that it was by the power of God's Spirit all the observed great things were done.

It is truly a SPECIAL mission Paul was on, with a very SPECIAL message. Are you on a special mission today? You were called to be on one by God. Have you experienced the joy of exercising delivery of God's message of hope to someone dieing in sin? Why not? If you ask the Lord, He will lead someone to you or you to someone who is desperate to know what you know through faith in Christ.
Your servant in Christ's love

Dan Elliott

drdanelliott@gmail.com