A Powerful Transformation

“Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; and he fell to the ground and 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, but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.’” Acts 9:1-6

“So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight, and he got up and was baptized; and he took food and was strengthened. Now for several days he was with the disciples who were at Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’All those hearing him continued to be amazed, and were saying, ‘Is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on this name, and who had come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?’ But Saul kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived at Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ.” Acts 9:17-22

The apostle Paul encountered Jesus Christ on the Damascus Road. Blinded and prostrate before God, Paul realized nothing he had learned could rival what Christ had revealed. Nor did he have a grasp of the immediate change that would take place in his life.

Some people have shared how God removed certain sinful desires at the point of salvation. Others tell how old habitats disappeared gradually. However, neither of these statements explains the depth to which God’s salvation reaches. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17-18: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God...”

When you accept Christ as your Savior, God immediately transfers your name from the book of sin and death to the book of eternal life. He purifies your life and no longer views you according to your sin, but deals with you according to the testimony of His Son. Don’t harbor the memory of the past failures and sins. Once you come to know Jesus, the past failures and sins. Once you come to know Jesus, the past is eternally behind you and the new - holy and pure - is forever in front of you.

All things are made new in Christ!