December 24 - Damascus

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Our Surprising Sovereign Savior

A man named Saul “persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.” He “dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.”

“Breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord”, Saul went to Damascus, so that “if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.”

And then this happened on the road to Damascus: “a light from heaven flashed around him. And falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’”

All this is in the New Testament book of Acts. Saul met the Lord Jesus himself while on the way to persecute followers of Christ. He was converted to faith in Jesus. It was all God’s doing. Saul was not looking for Jesus. He had no interest in honoring Christ. He wanted to destroy the church of God. But God said, “You will not destroy the church; you will help build My church.”

Saul, better known to most as Paul, preached the good news for the rest of his life that there is present forgiveness and future hope in Jesus Christ, who came to bring forgiveness and hope.

No one could have predicted Saul would be converted to the cause of Christ, but as he wrote years later: “God set me apart before I was born” and the surprising encounter with the Risen Savior on the Damascus Road changed everything.

God still moves in mysterious ways. The Sovereign Savior will surprise us on the way.

Pastor Cory Dahl
First Baptist - Sturgeon Bay 



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