April 2: Acts 9:17 - When Truth Himself Appeared (Today's Reflection from My Utmost For His Highest)

 

📖 Bible Verse

Acts 9:17

"...the Lord Jesus...has sent me that you may receive your sight..."

🌿 The Story

Paul is blind.
And a disciple named Ananias has been sent to restore his sight.

Before this moment, Paul was Saul — a man shaped by the “truth” of his time.
He was convinced the followers of Jesus, the early church, were dangerous, deceiving Israel, and needed to be stopped.
He was zealous in his belief, certain he was defending the honor of God.
And on that very day, he was on a mission to crush the church — with full authority behind him.

But on the road to Damascus, everything changed.

A light from heaven stopped him.
He fell to the ground.
A voice called his name:

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”

Terrified, he answered, “Who are You, Lord?”
And the answer shattered his world:

“I am Jesus — the One you are persecuting.”

The men with him heard the voice but saw no one.
Saul rose from the ground trembling, the strength gone out of him. He opened his eyes… and saw nothing.
He was undone.

🌿 Three Days in the Dark

They led him by the hand into Damascus.
The man who once walked with fierce certainty now stumbled. 

He sat in the house of Judas for three days—
blind; fasting and praying.
His certainty had shattered.
The encounter had left him trembling, unsure if he would ever see again. His world had collapsed.

In that darkness, the truth he had defended so fiercely rose before him—a truth he now saw was a lie. 

The One he opposed was God Almighty. 

In broad daylight, on an ordinary road, 

in the person of Jesus, the crucified Christ—

TRUTH HIMSELF had appeared.

His confidence had been exposed as blindness —

a blindness now mirrored in his own eyes.

And God used that darkness to overturn everything Saul thought he knew.

🌿 Enter Ananias

While Saul sat in darkness, the Lord spoke to a disciple named Ananias:

“Go… for he is a chosen instrument of Mine.”

Ananias obeyed.
He entered the house, laid his hands on the man everyone feared, and spoke the most unexpected words Saul had ever heard:

“Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus — the One who appeared to you on the road — has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.””

Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes.
He received his sight.
He was baptized, filled with the Holy Spirit, ate, and was strengthened.

From that moment on, he began to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified—testifying that Jesus is the Son of God.

The persecutor became the preacher.
The hunter became the servant.
The destroyer of the church became its builder.
And Saul stepped into his new name — Paul — the name he would carry into the Gentile world as an apostle of Jesus Christ.

✨ Reflection

Chambers says the lasting characteristic of a spiritual man is this:

• He understands the meaning of the Lord Jesus Christ in his life.
• He can explain the purposes of God to others.
• The overruling passion of his life is Jesus Christ.

This was Paul.

This is why his letters burn with such conviction.
This is why his life radiates purpose.
This is why he could endure prisons, storms, hunger, rejection, and loneliness — and still say:

“For me, to live is Christ.”

He was spiritual because he was surrendered.
He was spiritual because he was captivated
He was spiritual because he saw Jesus — truly saw Him — and nothing else ever fascinated him again.

Chambers warns us:

Do not allow anything to divert you
from your insight into Jesus Christ.

It is the true test of whether you are spiritual.

To be unspiritual is simple:
other things begin to fascinate you, 
and they slowly pull your gaze away from the One who called you.

But the spiritual life —
is a life with one center,
one passion,
one focus:

Jesus Christ.

🙏 Prayer 

Lord,  

Give us the spiritual insight that sees You as the center of everything.
Let nothing else fascinate us more than You 
or pull our attention or gaze away from You.

 
Make us spiritual men and women 

whose overruling passion is Jesus Christ alone.

 
In Jesus' name, Amen.

🌬️ Breath Prayer
Inhale: I have my eyes
Exhale: Fixed on Christ

🌾 Closing
With Jesus in the center of my life, everything else finds its place.
~ Quil