Labels Stick

Acts 9:21 (New King James Version, NKJV).

Then all who heard were amazed, and said, “Is this not he who destroyed those who called on this name in Jerusalem, and has come here for that purpose, so that he might bring them bound to the chief priests?”

I have a Coors beer bottle in my office. It sits on the top shelf with some flowers in it. The label is scratched up and some of it is missing. I found it one day in a ditch across the road in front of our church. I was walking the property and saw the end of up sticking up. I was going to pass it by and then I had an idea; a Holy Spirit inspired idea. I dug it out of the dirt and took it into the janitor closet and washed it inside and out. The next Sunday I put some flowers in it and used it as an illustration of my life. The Lord dug me out of the dirt, washed me inside and out, and then used me for His purpose.

That beer bottle fulfilled its purpose as a beer bottle but I found a new use for it. Now the label will always give it away that it used to be a beer bottle, but now it’s a flower vase. None of us have any worse past than the Apostle Paul the Christian bounty hunter. His reputation preceded him everywhere he went. Some never believed that he had “fully changed.”

If people still label you as whom you were before Christ just remember they labeled Jesus first. “Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” So they were offended at Him.”