Obeying God

This icon is from the 14th century and is of Ananias baptizing Saul.

I love the story of Saul’s (Paul’s) conversion.  There are so many different ways someone can focus on this passage and so many different topics on which to preach.

I think one of the most intriguing points to come out of this story is that, if we are going to truly make a difference for God, we need to obey Him no matter what.  This is true of Saul and Ananias.

There are three different points where both of these men have to obey God in this story.  First, Saul has to obey God in continuing to go to Damascus.  This may seem a bit absurd, since he was struck down off his horse with blindness because he was going to Damascus to arrest the Christians there.  Yet, Saul was told to go and he obeyed.

Second, Ananias had to obey God in going to Saul, even though this was extremely dangerous.  Ananias would have been prime candidate number one for being arrested by Saul since he was the leader of the Church in Damascus.  Yet, Ananias is told to go to Straight Street and baptize Saul.

And that is the third instances of obeying God.  Saul gets baptized by Ananias.  This may seem superfluous or even trivial, but God deemed it necessary.  Despite the fact that Saul had a real encounter with Jesus (which no one else could claim at that time who had not been with Jesus during His earthly ministry) and that a true miracle happened when he regained his sight, Saul still had to be baptized.

This is because the ordinary way God has set up for us to receive the Holy Spirit is through baptism.  Of course there can be instances where people are saved and in full fellowship with God without baptism, but those are the extreme cases where baptism was  not possible (think thief on the cross).  The way Christ established for us to follow is to receive baptism in order to be sealed into His body and receive the Holy Spirit.  And Saul’s conversion shows this to us.  Even the great Apostle Paul, with these wonderful experiences of Christ at his conversion, still needed to be baptized.  He needed to obey God.

May we feel the need to obey God just as much!

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