It is Jesus

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

IT IS JESUS

Acts 22:6-10

6 "About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. 7 I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, 'Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?'  8 "'Who are you, Lord?' I asked. "'I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,' he replied. 9 My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me. 10 "'What shall I do, Lord?' I asked.

NIV

Overcoming objections is one of the first principles any good sales person needs to learn. The “I know how you feel, I felt the same way, I thought the same thing, until I realized……” Here we have witnessed Paul explaining to them how he was, how he felt the same way they do, how he thought the same way they think, until he realized it was Jesus. Here is the part of his testimony that gets to explaining it is Jesus, He is not dead as we all thought, he is alive, he did rise from the dead, and he is the Christ, the Messiah. But also another truth, which may be larger then life, and we all might miss it in this story, seeing only the conversation and conversion of Paul. When Paul asked, “Who are you Lord?” and Jesus responded, “ I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting” Paul was persecuting people, believers in Jesus, how could he be persecuting Jesus if he is at the right hand of the Father, and is in fact God? The point is that is we are in Christ, or rather Christ is in us, perhaps not in the physical sense, but in the Spirit. We are indwelled with the Spirit, who is God. The mystery of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is revealed here, in part. Because Paul was persecuting believers, who were filled or indwelled with the Spirit, who is also Jesus who is also the Father, one yet three, or rather three yet one, he was therefore persecuting Jesus. The truth here is that we do indeed have God dwelling within us, of course in the person of the Spirit, yet that also means Jesus and the Father. When anyone does harm to us, they harm the Spirit, if we are persecuted, the Spirit is persecuted as he lives in us. When we do harm in any way to a fellow believer we are in fact doing harm to the Spirit. That saying “word, thought and deed” apply here. If we say or act or even think wrongly about a fellow believer we are persecuting Jesus.  When we disparage another believer’s character we are in fact persecuting Jesus. When we gossip about another believer, we are in fact persecuting Jesus. We have to be extremely careful to see Jesus when we are with fellow believers. Are they perfect? No. Are we perfect? No. But the fact is we are all indwelled with the Spirit and therefore we should love each other and in doing so we are loving Jesus.