One of the hardest parts of the Christian faith for many people to grasp is the way God can and does radically change people. We learn through observation and experience that most people do not change very much, tending to retain their faults throughout their lives. However, as the example of Paul shows, when God intervenes, a person’s life can be very significantly changed. In the first chapter of his first letter to Timothy, Paul writes:
I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who gives me strength, because he considered me to be faithful and chose me to serve, although I used to be a skeptic, a persecutor, and a bully. However, I received mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord overflowed for me with faith and love in Christ Jesus. It is true to say, and this deserves to be fully accepted, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners — and I am the worst of them. The reason why I received mercy was so that in me, the worst of sinners, Jesus Christ could demonstrate all his patience, as an example for people who were going to believe in him for eternal life.
If we believe that God had the power to create the Universe and everything in it, including humans, then it is a comparatively small thing to believe that the same God has the power to effect a complete change in someone’s life, turning him or her from a vocal enemy of the gospel to an ardent advocate, from a persecutor of followers of Jesus to a dispenser of mercy and grace.