Those who are most critical of your beliefs often exhibit a bitter, angry spirit. Don't take their vitriol personally ... Jesus is who they are openly resisting. God has the power to change the hardest of hearts and His salvation may come to them at some point.
Paul's conversion story is a reminder to guard against judging those who vehemently reject our Lord.
And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’. 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. Acts 26:14-16
Jesus used a metaphor to describe Saul's defiant behavior ... 'Kicking against the goads' is when an ox violently rebels against the plowman for prodding him onward. The animal only hurts himself while the target of his hostility goes unharmed.
And this was the case with Saul’s hatred toward Jesus ... (cruelly demonstrated by his persecution of Christians).
Everyone who feared this oppressor struggled with the news that he had become a believer, but when Saul (later renamed Paul) saw the resurrected Jesus on the Damascus Road, he was indeed converted.
This vengeful malcontent became the beloved apostle to the Gentiles, and by the Spirit of God wrote thirteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament.
You may find that the defiant, hard-hearted people who actively spurn the Lord are closer to salvation than those who ignore Him altogether.
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