[Paul said] “On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute 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. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ “So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.
–Acts 26:12-19 (TNIV)
Note the grace that jumps out at us in this passage. Jesus confronts Paul and asks him why his so wayward. He doesn’t punish Paul but rather commissions him to do his work! Amazing. Jesus reminds Paul that it is both stupid and futile to rebel against his will and this should not surprise us coming from the One who taught us to pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Pay attention also to our Lord’s heart’s desire. He wants to rescue us from our darkness and the power of Satan. Sadly there are those of us who don’t even recognize that they are in the darkness and Satan’s power. But that is not God’s fault as love never coerces the beloved; it only tries to explain and persuade. That said, if we really want to have an open mind, we have to at least entertain the possibility that we walk in the darkness and not dismiss it summarily. After all, Jesus did invite Andrew and Philip (and us) to “come and see.”
We read this story so often that I fear we miss the power in it. Here was a stubborn and wayward person, hellbent to destroy the faith. But then Paul met the real Jesus and his life was transformed. He accepted God’s gracious invitation to him to be an Apostle to all who walk in the darkness. Paul suffered unimaginable hardships and persecution for Jesus’ sake and he did so gladly because he knew the One who had called him to obedience.
If you ever want to see what joyful obedience looks like, check out Paul, both in Acts and in his letters in the NT. If you still don’t get it, then you will simply have to try it to understand. But if you have the courage and faith to try, Paul and countless others will be quick to tell you that you won’t ever be disappointed that you did.
By what means do we become Christians? Through our faith would be the universal answer. And in what way are we saved? Plainly because we were regenerated through the grace given to us in our baptism. How else could we be? And after recognizing that this salvation is established through the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, shall we fling away “that form of doctrine” which we received? Would it not rather be grounds for great groaning if we are found now further off from our salvation “than when we first believed,” and deny now what we then received?