1/12/2026

Day 12
Paul’s Damascus Road

Acts 9:1–19 (NLT)

Saul of Tarsus was not searching for Jesus. He was convinced he was already serving God. Acts tells us he was “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples” (Acts 9:1, NLT), armed with religious authority and moral certainty. His conscience was clear, his theology precise, his mission sanctioned. Saul was sincere—and sincerely wrong. Then, without warning, heaven interrupted his certainty. A light from heaven flashed around him, knocking him to the ground, and a voice spoke words that shattered his identity: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4).

Saul’s response exposes the collapse of his inner world: “Who are you, Lord?” (Acts 9:5). He knew this voice carried divine authority, but he did not recognize the One speaking. Jesus answered, “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting!” In a single sentence, Saul’s entire worldview was undone. The Jesus he despised was alive. The church he attacked was Christ’s body. His zeal for God had been opposition to God. As Jesus would later say, “You are wrong because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29).

This is how true surrender often begins—not with comfort, but with disorientation. God dismantles our false certainty before He establishes true obedience. Saul thought he was righteous; Jesus revealed he was rebellious. Many of us are no different. We confuse activity with obedience, passion with submission, conviction with surrender. But Proverbs warns, “There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death” (Proverbs 14:12).

Blinded and helpless, Saul was led into Damascus, where for three days he neither ate nor drank (Acts 9:9). His physical blindness mirrored his spiritual awakening. All the answers he once defended were gone. Only one question remained: “What shall I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:10). This is the true posture of surrender—not demanding explanations, but yielding direction. Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).

God then sent Ananias, a faithful disciple, understandably afraid of Saul. But the Lord declared, “He is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel. And I will show him how much he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Acts 9:15 – 16). Surrender to Christ includes surrender to suffering. Jesus never promised comfort; He promised a cross. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

When Ananias laid hands on Saul, “something like scales fell from his eyes” (Acts 9:18). He was baptized immediately, publicly identifying with the very people he once tried to destroy. The persecutor became the preacher. Saul became Paul. Grace did not merely forgive him; it redirected him. Paul would later testify, “This is a trustworthy saying… Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—and I am the worst of them all” (1 Timothy 1:15).

Paul never recovered from Damascus—and he never wanted to. His life became a living declaration of surrender. “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). What Saul lost—status, reputation, security—Paul counted as nothing. “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8).

The Damascus Road confronts us with a sobering question: Has Jesus exposed any righteousness in your life that is actually rebellion? Have you asked, with no conditions attached, “What shall I do, Lord?” Surrender begins when Christ is no longer an idea to defend, but a Lord to obey.

“Conversion is not when Christ joins your mission, but when He exposes that your mission was fighting Him.”