THURSDAY November 16th
Acts 9:15-17
‘But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”’
Over the next couple of devotions, we will consider what it is that Jesus is saying to Saul as Ananias relays it to him. Firstly, for today, ‘. . . he is a chosen instrument of mine . . .’
At first we might stop and think ‘well surely there were better men around to choose than this bully, who was determined at the very least to imprison the believers and at worst was willing to kill them!’ Yet God saw through all of this outward demonstration of evil that came from the heart filled with hatred and saw a man whose heart that once changed by his grace would become what I consider to be the greatest champion and pioneer of the Christian faith that this world as ever known.
God can take the vilest and transform them into beautiful trophies of grace. This must remind us of how amazing God’s grace really is.
I often stop and think of some of the testimonies I have heard from both men and women through the ministry of Teen Challenge who used to visit us in our Church in my Hereford days, those who had gone so far away from God, their lives utterly broken and ruined through addictions, violence and crime and yet God in his mercy had met them by his grace.
And, we may not have been breathing out the same threats and acting in the same violent ways as Saul, many of us have never been caught up in addictions etc. yet make no bones about we were all sinners, we were all heading in the same direction, we were all dead in our trespasses and sin and we all needed to come the same way as Saul did, the only way which is through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And no matter what our past, once forgiven it is all blotted out, we are all given a brand new start and Saul was transformed, we could say beyond recognition as God met with him. And so should we be, the things we used to do we should no longer do, for when we are saved we have become new creations. What an opportunity to quote my favourite verse of Scripture ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come’ 2 Corinthians 5:17.
This was Paul’s testimony; he had proven it by the dramatic change that came from his encounter with Jesus. Are we living proof to those around us that we too have been changed by God’s grace.