Revival Praying – 4

 Revival Praying – 4

Subject – Branded for Christ

By Rick Welborne

Galatians 6:14-17 (NKJV)
¹⁴  But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
¹⁵  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.
¹⁶  And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.    
¹⁷  From now on let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. 

--We all think we know each other so well but none of us truly know each other deeply. How many times are we surprised when a spouse walks away and leaves a family after 20 or 30 years?

--We have a tendency to put on at church what we want people to see or what we want them to believe about us and we are shocked when we find it is not true. To a great degree, we are all hypocrites.

--To truly know someone you would have to know the influences of heredity and environment, and all the countless moral choices that have fashioned the person. 

--Even though we cannot know all the details about a person, we can often trace a person’s life and find the motivation that turned that person around or what marked that person for destiny. 

--Such a man, Saul of Tarsus, later to become Paul, was a marked or branded man. As we look into his life and see the total transformation, we can learn from his words…I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. 

--Whatever you think Paul meant by these words, one thing is very clear, he was acknowledging that Christ had ownership of him—body, soul, and spirit. He was branded for Christ from this day forward.

--Paul was not trying to say that he was like Jesus by the outward wounds he received in his body but was referring to an inward crucifixion that identified him with Christ.

Galatians 2:20 (NKJV)
²⁰  I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

1. Branded for Christ – I have been crucified with Christ.

--Other than Jesus, has there ever been a man more branded to a task than the Apostle Paul. Jesus came with singleness of mind to fulfill God’s plan for His life, so did Paul after his conversion. 

--Even in his calling, he would learn his life was no longer his own. Listen to what Jesus told Ananias when he was to go and pray for Saul.

Acts 9:15-16 (NKJV)
¹⁵  But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.
¹⁶  For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake."