A Powerful Story

Press the play button to watch the video above or press 'more' to read the transcript of the daily devotion below. Please read Acts 26:12-32 (use your own Bible or use the link above to access the in-App Bible).

Have you ever heard of people being described as “walking encyclopaedias”? I suspect there wasn’t much Paul couldn’t tell anyone about God. Which makes the story in our reading today all the more surprising. Surely no one knew God better than this theological heavyweight. If there were religious league tables in knowing about God, Paul would have easily topped the group with a comfortable goal difference. And yet, when God actually spoke to him directly, Paul’s response was wonderfully awkward: “Who are you, Lord?” Paul had to ask for an introduction! He suddenly realised he didn’t really know God at all.

That encounter with Jesus changed everything Paul knew about God and faith. Along with his restored sight and new name came an opened heart and a transformed life. Here’s the uncomfortable question for us: do we believe this kind of transformation still happens today, or have we quietly settled for a Jesus we admire from a distance, rather than one we actually encounter?

This year, as Blackburn Diocese celebrates 100 years, we’re using the strapline “All for Jesus.” Now that sounds bold, looks great on banners, but is also deeply inconvenient because being all for Jesus means really knowing Jesus rather than knowing about Him.

Knowing Jesus led Paul to consider everything else to be “rubbish” (Philippians 3:8). He didn’t care for anything other than helping people to know Jesus themselves. It led to people like Festus thinking he’d gone mad, got him thrown in prison, facing death threats, suffering beatings, being stoned, shipwrecked, as well as facing many other hardships before eventually being martyred for his faith. But Paul had planted many churches, brought many people to know the Lord and, through his example and his writings he has led millions, no billions of people, to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.

Now, we may not have been struck blind or gone through half of what Paul did—but if we know Jesus we each have a story. It may be quieter, slower, but it is no less powerful. The question is: can we tell it?

Let us pray: Lord, stir up our faith so much that we cannot help but tell others about you and to live a life all for Jesus. Amen.