God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you
Paul is the serving God with his whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son. This seems to me to be an important distinction. To use a popular “Texas Hold’em” poker term, Paul was “All-In”. When it comes to living out what you believe with passion, there are few better models than Paul.
When Paul was a committed Pharisee he was All-In in his passion for wiping out Christians. And when Jesus confronted Paul with the truth of his identity as God sent one, Paul does a complete 180. He is fully surrendered to God and the teachings of Jesus. There are few people I know of who are so passionate about serving God that when they are convinced of their error will completely turn from that way. But here we have Paul modeling that kind of lifestyle.
One might argue that Paul was the most committed of Jesus’ early followers (if you can rank the commitment of a group of people most of whom were tortured and died for their beliefs). After all, Paul had the most to lose in “changing sides”. He had built up quite a reputation for his zeal to kill Christians and now by becoming one he was effectively setting himself up to be everyone’s enemy. The Christians were already afraid of him and would not likely trust his change of heart and the Jews would just add him to their list of targets.
In spite of all this Paul followed God with his whole heart and accepted whatever might come. And as he does that in this verse he lets God be his witness as to how genuine he was.
Tye Parks 