The Damascus Road Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" And he said, "Who are you, Lord?" And he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." -- Acts 9:3-5, ESV Ever since the Pharisee Saul became the Apostle Paul, we call it the "Damascus Road Experience" any time a really bad person comes to good faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But the truth is, every genuinely born again Christian has their own Damascus Road. I used to hear it said often by preachers that to become a Christian, you must take the first step, then God will take the rest. That's true, if you acknowledge that the first step is to sin. The Pharisee Saul certainly did his part. Though clothed in sheepish religious garb, Saul was a ravenous, sinful wolf who hated the body of Christ, the church; therefore, he hated the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus loved him and gave him grace. Shining brighter than the sun, the Son of God convicted Saul of his many sins. Even with this brilliant and blinding Christophany on the Damascus Road, the gospel still had to be presented and explained by one beggar to another. So not only did God appear personally to Saul, He sent a man named Ananias. Like a skilled obstetrician, he helped birth Saul into the kingdom of God and New Testament church. It is also worth pointing out that Saul was saved because he was chosen by God, because of the great grace of election. As Paul realized what it meant to be "a chosen instrument" of God in the ensuing years, he would write inspired letters explaining salvation, from election in eternity past to security through eternity future, better than any other biblical writer (ref. Romans 8:28-30; Ephesians 1:3-14; etc.). While salvation is all of God and all of grace, it does make room for free and willing human choices that matter, for eternity. Saul stopped persecuting Christians, and no doubt repented of a magnitude of other sins. Saul believed the good news about Jesus Christ's life, death, resurrection, and in his case, reappearance. Saul was willingly baptized and became a member of the church he had once tried to destroy. And so Saul became Paul, with a lot more decisions to make, and a redemptive story to tell that will encompass half of the New Testament. If you are a true Christian, your road to salvation may not have been named Damascus, but it was virtually the same path. Compare the experience of an average Christian to the amazing conversion of the Apostle Paul. Your first step, like Paul's, is to be confronted with your sin, sinning, and sinfulness. Until one comes to grip with this fact, and its dire consequences of separation from God, certain death, and eternal punishment, the bad news will never give way to the good. No one can know God unless God reveals Himself to them, and the Holy Spirit's favorite two tools in revealing the gospel to mankind are the word of God and a witness for Christ. Ananias was instrumental in Paul coming to Christ. In my case it was a Freewill Baptist preacher named Bill. Who witnessed to you? Who will you witness to? Every Christian comes to Christ on the same road. The intellect is engaged, the emotions are triggered, and the human will enjoins the will of God in repentance and faith. Proof of saving faith is found in an eagerness and willingness to be baptized and become an active part of Christ's church. The "Damascus Road Experience" teaches us many things. No one is so sinful that they cannot be saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. No one is so good that they do not require a miracle of grace to be saved. And while God is sovereign, and no one will be saved apart from His sovereign grace, He still saves anyone, anywhere, anytime, when they "call upon the name of the Lord." Expo 7: The road to damascus L It’s a short drive from the sleek corniche in Beirut to the bountiful souk in Damascus but the residents of these two great cities eye each other with a distinct lack of neighbourly affection. It doesn’t help when you suspect your Syrian cousins of assassinating your politicians and trying to undermine your delicate democracy. But there are other regional tensions at play on the road – bridges bombed by Israel, and the Hizbollah posters make that clear. Monocle navigates the pockmarked highway – and takes the region’s temperature By Andrew Mueller Photography Cristobal Palma Well, the sun is certainly bright out here, but nothing sunglasses can’t overcome. The only voice saying anything unto me is my translator. As for persecutions, we’re hoping to ward them off with bureaucratic talismans: accreditation from Lebanon’s Ministry of Information, a number for a contact at the Syrian equivalent. The Road to Damascus isn’t what it used to be. We are fudging slightly. The journey that made the Road to Damascus a universally understood allegory for conversion is impossible to retrace today. When first-century Jewish vigilante… Bob Tamasy: Called To Pastor - Or To Pasture? From time to time over the years, because I worked for parachurch ministries, I would hear from people believing they had been called to vocational ministry as well. “I’ve been called to preach,” they might say, or, “The Lord is calling me to be a pastor (or a missionary).” Those are noble pursuits, without question. And if God is calling someone – perhaps you – to any role in vocational ministry, woe to you if you choose to ignore it. Look what happened to Jonah! If the Lord doesn’t provide a huge fish, He’s perfectly capable of using some other means for getting your attention. But suppose you receive such a call. When He says, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”and like Isaiah you respond, “Here I am. Send me!”(Isaiah 6:8), what if nothing happens? What if there you are, eager to go, but you have no guidance from God as to where to go, or when, or even why? Sometimes, when folks are called to pastor, the Lord first chooses to send them to pasture. He wants them to marinate for a while, or to mature, so they’ll be ready and equipped for use when He needs them. The Bible is filled with examples of this. There was Abram, who was promised that one day he would become “a great nation…. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2-3). Abram – whom God later renamed Abraham – was 75 years old when he was instructed to leave his familiar home in Haran; it wasn’t until 25 years later that he began to see this promise coming to fruition. Then there was Joseph, Jacob’s son, who was sold into slavery by his brothers, then wrongfully accused and imprisoned by Potiphar. It was years later when Lord opened the door for him to become the most trusted advisor to Pharaoh. Ultimately, Joseph became God’s instrument for bringing the nation of Israel into Egypt where they multiplied and started becoming that great nation. As an infant, Moses was spared another Pharaoh’s murderous wrath. As an adult, adopted into Pharaoh’s family, Moses interceded after he saw an Egyptian mercilessly beating a Hebrew slave. Realizing his act had been witnessed and realizing his life was suddenly in jeopardy, he fled to Midian. There he literally was put out to pasture, becoming a shepherd to his father-in-law’s sheep. Moses continued in that role, the Scriptures tell us, for 40 years before God appeared to him from a burning bush and gave him the orders to be His instrument for freeing the Israelites from 400 years of slavery. Then there’s the apostle Paul, once known as zealous Saul who took delight in persecuting followers of Christ. After encountering Jesus on the road to Damascus, he was converted but again, God didn’t put him into ministry for years. Finally, Barnabas was sent to Tarsus to find Saul and essentially tell him, “Okay, the Lord says it’s time for you to get to work.” The first time God guided me into vocational ministry, I wasn’t even discerning enough spiritually to realize it until I was offered a position. All I knew was that for about a year I remained in my newspaper job, waiting for the right door to open. The other two times I knew the Lord was leading me to a new assignment, but both times I had to wait more than a year before He made clear to me where He wanted me to go. In truth, we all have a call from God to serve Him. It’s wherever we happen to be at the time. A couple weeks ago I talked with a banker on the West Coast who had thought he wanted to become a pastor, but the Lord made it clear that his ministry would be to his customers and colleagues at the bank. Today he’s having an impact on many people who would never venture into a church on their own. Moral of the story: Even if you know you’re called to become a pastor (or some other type of vocational Christian service), don’t be dismayed if God first puts you out to pasture. In the meantime, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). * * *Robert J. Tamasy is a veteran journalist, former newspaper editor and magazine editor. Bob has written hundreds of magazine articles, and authored, co-authored and edited more than 15 books. These include the newly re-published, “Business At Its Best,” “Tufting Legacies,” “The Heart of Mentoring,” and “Pursuing Life With a Shepherd’s Heart.” He edits a weekly business meditation, “Monday Manna,” which is translated into more than 20 languages and distributed via email around the world by CBMC International. To read more of Bob Tamasy’s writings, you can visit his blog, www.bobtamasy.blogspot.com, or his website (now being completed), www.bobtamasy-readywriterink.com. He can be emailed at btamasy@comcast.net.
CHUKA KEN MINISTRY 