-March 17, 2023-
Good morning, happy Friday, Happy Saint Patrick’s Day,
“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).
“And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen” (Mark 16:20).
The gospel is the good news of God’s salvation available to whomever believes in Jesus Christ. It is a message that Christ died for our sins, He was buried, and He rose again the third day. It is an invitation from the Lord Himself that whoever believes in Him, repents of his sins, and receives Jesus as Lord and Savior will be saved. Paul had a burden for lost souls and tirelessly preached the gospel and won many to Christ. All the eleven apostles also proclaimed the truth and were all martyred for it. This included Matthias who was chosen to take the place of Judas who betrayed Christ and went out and committed suicide. He was never saved and is called the son of perdition.
A man named Dick Hopkins wrote a gospel tract, entitled, “Saint Patrick of Ireland: The Real Story behind Saint Patrick’s Day.” In it he tells the true story of a man who changed a country. I will share some excerpts from this wonderful tract. He wrote, “Patrick was born in about 389 in Scotland. His father and grandfather were leaders in the primitive British Church. Not withstanding the fact that Patrick grew up in a Christian home he says of himself, ‘I knew not the true God.’”
“At the age of 16 he was captured by some pirates and taken across the sea to serve as a slave in barbarian Ireland. Ireland had never been civilized by the Romans and was inhabited by about 200,000 Celts of the pagan Druid religion.” He spent time alone on the mountains tending the sheep and had time to reflect on the Christian teaching of his father and grandfather. He wrote, ‘The Lord opened to me a sense of my unbelief, that I might remember my sins, and that I might be converted with all my heart unto the Lord my God.’ “At the age of 22 he fled Ireland. He had no money to pay for sea passage back home so he prayed and God softened the heart of a tough sea captain. He gave him free passage.”
He finally made it home to his parents but he had a great burden for the lost souls in Ireland. He went back to Ireland preaching the gospel of Christ and winning souls for Him. He spent the rest of his life there preaching the gospel to the poor and lost of Ireland. He died in Ireland in his mid 70’s and by that time he had turned most of Ireland to Christ and organized at least 350 churches plus hundreds of schools where the Bible was taught. His writings are filled with quotations from the Scriptures. For hundreds of years after his death the Bible was kept alive, while the rest of Europe mostly set it aside for church ritual and tradition. Only hundreds of years later was the Irish church incorporated into the Roman Catholic Church.
“Patrick described himself as a ‘sinner’ who had been saved by the grace of God to turn the Irish from the worship of the sun god to ‘the worship of the true Son, Christ’ and God the Father Omnipotent.’ “Patrick’s true humility, his deep concern for lost souls and his unwavering dedication to obey and serve the Lord present a challenge to all who profess Christ as Savior today.” As Paul Harvey used to always say, “Now you know the rest of the story.”
May the Lord help us to follow Saint Patrick’s example and go everywhere to share with every person we can the gospel of salvation. This gospel that began when Christ rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God, still is the power of God unto salvation today. Have a blessed Saint Patrick’s Day. Stay safe and healthy.
Not just wearing green but putting on Christ so that He can be seen,
Dean
Dean Allen's Daily Devotional 