Would the REAL Saint Patrick Please Stand Up?
This morning, as we all pulled out our green shirts, ties, dresses and pants… my curiosity demanded that this holy-day had more significance than wearing green and drinking green beer. So I did some research and it shocked me to learn that Saint Patrick was NOT Irish!!!
Saint Patrick was a British boy who was kidnapped by Irish pirates at the age of 16 and brought to Ireland as a slave. Six years later, he escaped slavery and returned home to his family. After trusting Jesus as Savior and committing his life to ministry, he would later return to Ireland to bring the gospel.
Yes, he escaped slavery… then returned to the place where he was enslaved to bring the gospel.
His story should encourage each of us Christians. We all were slaves to sin, but God freed us by His grace. Now, our responsibility is to go back to the world from which we’ve been freed and bring the gospel so that others might be free!
“Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”
~2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Saint Patrick would later become a Bishop, and eventually be designated the “Patron Saint of Ireland.” He is identified as one who was enslaved by Irish, freed from Irish, then served the Irish. May we be identified as those who have been enslaved by world system, freed from the world, then called to minister to the world!
Are you Saint Patrick? Will you carry on his legacy? Don’t just wear green today… commit yourself to the gospel as Saint Patrick did.