A Light
From Heaven
Why
is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?
“Indeed,
I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus
of Nazareth. And that is what I did in Jerusalem; with authority received from
the chief priests, I not only locked up many of the saints in prison, but I
also cast my vote against them when they were being condemned to death. By
punishing them often in all the synagogues I tried to force them to blaspheme;
and since I was so furiously enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign
cities.
“With
this in mind, I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of
the chief priests, when at midday along the road, your Excellency, I saw a
light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions.
When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the
Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick
against the goads.’ I asked, ‘Who are you, LORD?’ The Lord answered, ‘I am
Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet; for I have
appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the
things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you. I will
rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles – to whom I am sending you to
open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power
of Satan to God, so that they may receive the forgiveness of sins and a place
among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
Many
of us can point to a specific moment in time when we realized we belonged to
Jesus. There is a song we sing at Christmas and Easter called, “Mary, Did You
Know?” When did you know? When we “know” we can begin to grasp the extent of
God’s amazing love for us.
Paul
had such a moment on the road to Damascus. His first encounter with Jesus
transformed him from a fierce persecutor of Christians to the first great
missionary. He was spurred on by this eye-opening experience, and Paul’s
newfound love for the Savior compelled him to share the gospel with everyone he
met.
It is one thing to know there is a God;
it is quite another to know who God is,
and to know that He knows who we are.