September 18, 2025
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in 2 Samuel and Acts? Here’s today’s reading:
Acts 9 (NIV)
Saul’s Conversion
1 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.……Continue Reading
Certainly Saul is the Sunday School story you share to anyone who thinks maybe they are too far gone or have done too much wrong in their lives to come to Jesus. But imagine being witness to such transformation! If the details were not enough to get one’s attention, bright lights in the road, blind, scales falling from his eyes, his life transformation is even more remarkable! He went from a brutal man tormenting the people of Christ to bringing so many to Christ! I am sure at the time beginning his ministry, it was plagued with people not trusting this was a true transformation. For many of us when we come to Christ hopefully we then look, act, and speak differently than our former self and those of the world and I am sure those who knew us before might wonder, but then the “proof is in the pudding” so to speak and then our new life becomes the testimony of Christ’s transforming love!
Here
Is there any other person in all of scripture that has a complete 180 by the power of the Holy Spirit more than Saul to Paul. The perfect person to carry out the gospel to the gentiles. His personality and knowledge of scripture sent him with zeal on Gods powering journeys establishing and shaping the history of Christianity. No person besides Jesus himself. Had more impact. And all the time we spend studying his God Breathed letters to churches. Not to mention all the persecution he endured and kept pushing forward. Gives us so much courage to also press on.
Acts 9
Acts 8 & 9
Saul is so intent on going after Christians that he doesn`t even realize that he is wrong. He thinks that he is doing God`s service. It isn`t until Jesus Christ confronts him from heaven that makes him realize how wrong he is. He is blinded for three days until God sends a faithful believer in the person of Anaias to Saul. This man is fearful of Saul because of what he is doing to Christians but answers God`s call to go to Saul. He is trusting God that He will work it all out. Anaias heals Saul as an instrument of God. Saul also becomes a believer, and he is now known as Paul. Paul now starts preaching Christ and now he is the enemy of the same Jews that were with him. So much so that they want to kill him. Perhaps these three days in prayer before God sent Anaias was the vision that Paul speaks of in 2 Cor. 12. Or maybe one of the times that he almost died. God bless.
Acts 9; Isaiah 34
Peter heals a man that was paralyzed for eight years. And then he after praying brings a woman disciple name of Tabitha {Dorcas} back to life after she had died. Such is the power of God. It was the will of God for Dorcas to still live. She must of have more work to do in Christ. Sometimes we don`t know why God allows the death of some and others to live to old age, but we do know that He is all knowing and is good all the time. For example, my sister Susan died when she was 15 in 1972 the day before I graduated from Pilgrim High. She was a believer but I didn`t become a Christian until over a year later mostly because of her death. And then my brother, and my mother came to Christ within a year and a half span, .after I did. My father I believe got saved much later. I have shared this before, but it makes my point. God bless.
It is truly amazing that this great opposer of the Christian faith is converted to it. And what a miraculous and personal way that it happens. It is a powerful witness to the truth that Jesus was raised from the dead. And it is no wonder that Ananias is hesitant to go to Paul, but he is obedient to what God asks of him which is something we should all be. And in the same way Paul receives physical sight, he also sees his need to believe and officially identified with Jesus through baptism. What a great indicator of his strong conviction that he is then willing to proclaim and defend his faith. How confused the Jews must have been, that someone on their side was now giving a message that offended them. And evil always wants to silence the truth by eliminating it. And how powerful is Jesus that the same miracles performed by Him are now performed by His name.
Jesus said “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” When we are being persecuted, Jesus takes it personally because we are his – so he is also being persecuted. And the apostles had great power as their faith grew, so much so that Peter could raise Tabitha from the dead. If we have faith as small as a mustard seed, we can move mountains and nothing will be impossible for us.
”But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.“
Acts 9:15 NKJV
We associate peace, comfort and ease with Christianity in America, but being God’s vessels may result in suffering and in the rest of the world it does. Just read an article that Christians are the most persecuted people in the world, a large number being killed every year. Not that we should be seeking persecution, but we certainly shouldn’t be passive in order to avoid it.