His Voice

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

HIS VOICE

Acts 26:12-18

12 "On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13 About noon, O king, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. 14 We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.'  15 "Then I asked, 'Who are you, Lord?' "'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,' the Lord replied. 16'Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.' 

NIV

So both Festus and Agrippa as well as all those present in the court have heard just how Paul lived as a Jew who hated anyone who had anything to do with Jesus of Nazareth, and now they, as well as we, are hearing about Paul’s encounter, in person, with that same Jesus of Nazareth. Here is where some of us might separate ourselves from Paul in the sense that we recognize this happened to Paul, but think it would never happen to us. Paul believed because he saw Jesus and we have to believe on faith, without ever actually encountering Jesus in person. Paul’s conversion was due to an overwhelming miracle, seeing this bright light, hearing the voice of Jesus and being blinded, having Jesus give him a personal calling as to what he was to do. Many of us have to sort of guess as to what the Lord would have us to do as we may not have actually heard the voice of Jesus telling us. This, of course, opens the door to our own thoughts as to what we want to do, instead of what Jesus wants us to do. Yet we have more than enough evidence within the scriptures which indicate that God will speak to us and give us personal direction as to what we should do. Sometimes we make excuses for God by saying that he has said, “Wait” or “No” or Not right now” instead of simply saying we have not heard from him yet. If Jesus intervened into Paul’s life in such a dramatic way, was he the only one worthy of that kind of intervention? We also already witnessed Paul’s interaction with the Spirit, warning him of what to expect. Why only Paul? Why not us? The answer is God does intervene in our lives and he does so in supernatural ways. He even speaks to us, in an audible voice, if we are listening. Paul’s companions saw the light, but did not heard the voice of Jesus, only Paul did, and perhaps it was meant to be such, but it also could have been because Paul was willing to listen. The point here, the life lesson for us here is that God speaks to his people to first call them from their past lives, and then to give them instructions, specific instructions, beyond all those we have in his collective words we call the Bible. Yes, he can speak to us from the scripture. He speaks volumes to us about himself and our relationship with him and how we should behave as his children, as any parent does with their children. But he also gets personally involved in our lives, speaking directly to us when the need arises, when he has something special for us to do. He may work a miracle to get our attention in our lost condition, as he did with Saul. God can do anything he wants to do, even allow us to actually hear his voice.