Paul Went to Arabia, and So Must We
I believe the reason Paul went to Arabia after his salvation, rather than running to the apostles in Jerusalem, was that he knew he had to know God for himself.
When the scales fell from Paul’s eyes, he realized that all the knowledge that he thought he had about God was nothing. All his studying and knowledge of the law were foolish because he had been fighting against God Himself, proving that he did not know Him.
I can only imagine the deep sorrow Paul must have felt. He had to go and seek God and get to know him afresh. This required direct communion with God without influence from men. Many people want to know men of God; they want to know this preacher and that preacher and go from this meeting to that meeting to hear great men and their wisdom, but they have not made a beginning to go to their own personal Arabia and get to know God directly one on one.
This Arabia is not a physical place but a secret place. Unless a man knows God for himself, he can only talk about the God of someone else. Isn’t that why in our day people talk about the God of prophet so-and-so and apostle so-and-so…? They speak the truth because they have not known God for themselves to be able to say, “My God, my Jesus.”
Paul wanted to know God for himself
I have no interest in knowing someone’s God or experiences with God without my own. Paul was desperate to know this God he had thought he knew but had not even begun to know. He did not go to seek the men who had walked and talked and slept with Jesus in Jerusalem. He went to Arabia to seek Jesus himself. And he met him. When we seek, we find. God always rewards those who diligently seek him.
Paul received the revelation of the gospel in Arabia. He knew the Jesus he spoke of intimately. No one taught him about Jesus; he met Jesus for himself. He did not need anyone to tell him; he knew. He could boldly say, “I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED (2 Timothy 1:12).” Can we say the same?
Have we known Him?
Have we known him? Can we speak of a Jesus we have met, or do we have secondhand stories? Can we say, “I know him, I met him, and he revealed himself to me“? Have we had our own private encounter where he has removed the scales of religion and pride from us and revealed himself to us? When he does it, it is not always pleasant, but it is life-changing. We may discover we had been working against God all along, thinking we were serving him because we were advancing our own agendas in his name, just as Paul discovered.
Everyone needs to go to ‘Arabia’ and know whom they have believed. We don’t need to consult flesh and blood. Flesh and blood cannot show us God. We need direct experience with God so that he can become OUR GOD. A secondhand god will eventually fail. But when we meet God for ourselves, no man can take him from us because no one gave him to us.
More than ever, we need to be conferring not with flesh and blood, but with the Lord Jesus himself. And then when we come together, everyone knows who they have believed without glorying in men.
“But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to REVEAL HIS SON IN ME, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not IMMEDIATELY CONFER WITH FLESH AND BLOOD, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who WERE APOSTLES BEFORE ME; but I went to ARABIA, and returned again to Damascus.” Galatians 1:15-17
Thank you for reading!
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