THE APOSTLE: Surprising Commission! (Session 3)

When the Lord spoke to Ananias, his response was “Here I am, Lord” (Acts 9:10). In other words, “Here I am; here is my mind, my heart and my willingness.” The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul” (Acts 9:11).

Saul??? The name sent a chill through Ananias. Saul was not only feared by the followers of Jesus, but Saul had become the symbol of evil and persecution. The Lord said, “At this moment he (Saul) is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight” (Acts 9:12).

Ananias’ story reminds us that we must be willing to serve as the Lord’s bridge to those who are lost, to those whom our Lord would have us reach out.

If you sensed that you had received a divine commission to do something extraordinary, what would you do? Would you first seek to validate your sense of call with others or would you go ahead and act on what you believed in your heart God was calling you to do?

What kinds of barriers exist that sometimes prevent us from being “open” to God’s call to act on our faith?

The APOSTLE: Groundwork

In Galatians 1:15, Paul refers to “God, who had set me apart before I was born…” When Paul wrote those words, he was echoing ideas expressed in the Old Testament. In Jeremiah, we read about Jeremiah’s call as a prophet:

“Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations‘” (Jeremiah 1:4,5)

Paul was saying something similar. New Testament commentator, William Barclay, writes: “Every person is an idea of God; for every person God has a plan; God sends every person into the world with a part to play in God’s purpose and design. It may be a big part and it may be a small part. It may be to do something of which the whole world will know, and it may be to do something of which none but the circle of those who are nearest to us will ever know” (adapted — Barclay, Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians, Westminster Press [Philadelphia, 1958], p. 13).

Do you agree with William Barclay that each of us is “destined” for a particular role in the plan of God?