Paul’s life as an apostle is an interesting story of transformation. We know of him as a great apostle who until death took faith in Jesus and pulled life through relying on the strength in Christ.
But St. Paul didn’t started the way we know him of. He was actually the Saul quoted in the Book of Acts to be one of the Pharisees who sent to death the people of God and destroyed all the churches because of unbelief. He was totally opposing Christ.
It was when he had a visionary encounter with Jesus that he was able to be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. The same reason why he was able to pen almost 75% of the New Testament and why he was able to live a life glorifying the Lord. These amazing works were not at all pushed through by his own effort. In fact, Romans 7:8 tells of how hard it was for Paul to do good things. But when he let himself be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was then made able of all these things.
The work of the Holy Spirit is not a one-time, quick and easy step. Not because we let Him transform us, we can then enjoy a life of holiness. Paul actually described the process as working out salvation in fear and trembling. This is why we still sin despite our desires not to. We struggle and we fight in a big battlefield.
Like Paul’s letter to Timothy, we are to fight a good fight of faith. When we let the Holy Spirit work in our lives, we were not assured that we can then be living a peaceful, worry-free and sin-free life because the Holy Spirit works in us. But we may always take hold of the promise that He who began the good work will carry it on to completion (Phil 1:6). Our part is faith. Faith that in any situations, we will believe that God is ever true to His words that he will complete the work he began in us.
In this battlefield, we are instructed to live for the glory of God (1Cor 10:31). But doing this all alone may just make wasted efforts. Flesh gives birth to flesh. And living to glorify God is not the work of flesh but the work of the Spirit that it then needs to born of Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit and His transforming power that begins the work of transformation. Along the way we may fail, but a good fight of faith would always assure us that this work will be completed by Him who started it in you.
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