Acts 9:1 (MSG) — 1 All this time Saul was breathing down the necks of the Master’s disciples, out for the kill. He went to the Chief Priest

Acts 22:4 (MSG) — 4 “I went after anyone connected with this ‘Way,’ went at them hammer and tongs, ready to kill for God. I rounded up men and women right and left and had them thrown in prison.

Acts 26:10 (MSG) — 10 Backed with the full authority of the high priests, I threw these believers—I had no idea they were God’s people!—into the Jerusalem jail right and left, and whenever it came to a vote, I voted for their execution.

1 Timothy 1:13–15 (MSG) — 13 The only credentials I brought to it were invective and witch hunts and arrogance. But I was treated mercifully because I didn’t know what I was doing—didn’t know Who I was doing it against! 14 Grace mixed with faith and love poured over me and into me. And all because of Jesus. 15 Here’s a word you can take to heart and depend on: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I’m proof—Public Sinner Number One—

Acts 7:58 (MSG) — 58 they dragged him out of town and pelted him with rocks. The ringleaders took off their coats and asked a young man named Saul to watch them.

John 3:3 (MSG) — 3 Jesus said, “You’re absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it’s not possible to see what I’m pointing to—to God’s kingdom.”

John 3:7 (MSG) — 7 “So don’t be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be ‘born from above’—out of this world, so to speak.

Acts 9:2 (MSG) — 2 and got arrest warrants to take to the meeting places in Damascus so that if he found anyone there belonging to the Way, whether men or women, he could arrest them and bring them to Jerusalem.

Romans 12:1–2 (MSG) — 1 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2 Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

2 Corinthians 10:10 (MSG) — 10 “His letters are brawny and potent, but in person he’s a weakling and mumbles when he talks.”

2 Corinthians 11:6 (MSG) — 6 It’s true that I don’t have their voice, haven’t mastered that smooth eloquence that impresses you so much. But when I do open my mouth, I at least know what I’m talking about. We haven’t kept anything back. We let you in on everything.

Galatians 4:13–14 (MSG) — 13 You were well aware that the reason I ended up preaching to you was that I was physically broken, and so, prevented from continuing my journey, I was forced to stop with you. That is how I came to preach to you. 14 And don’t you remember that even though taking in a sick guest was most troublesome for you, you chose to treat me as well as you would have treated an angel of God—as well as you would have treated Jesus himself if he had visited you?

Galatians 6:11 (MSG) — 11 Now, in these last sentences, I want to emphasize in the bold scrawls of my personal handwriting the immense importance of what I have written to you.

1 Corinthians 1:27 (MSG) — 27 Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses,

2 Corinthians 12:7–9 (MSG) — 7 Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! 8 At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, 9 and then he told me, My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness. Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness.