Locations & Times

Can you cover your eyes like you are blind like Paul was? (Cover eyes.)

What did Jesus tell Paul to do? (Stop being mean and go tell others about him.)

Who is someone you can tell about Jesus? (Take responses.)

Read: Acts 9:1-19

What would it take for you to make a radical shift in the way you see the purpose of your life? For Saul, it took a blinding light from heaven. It took the voice of Jesus telling him to stop what he was doing. It took three days of blindness. It took three days of fasting and prayer. It took a miraculous healing.

What would it take for you to make a radical shift from seeing someone as an enemy to seeing them as a brother? For Ananias, it took a vision from the Lord. This new believer in Jesus must have been shaking as he placed his hands on the eyes of the man he knew to be a torturer of Christians. He was risking imprisonment and death. But he obediently came to heal Saul. Ananias’ greeting to the man he knew to be a sworn enemy? “Brother.”

Jesus radically shifts everything. Jesus can change an enemy into a brother. He can replace fear with hope and healing. Jesus can change rage and righteous indignation, to humility and a new purpose.

Saul changed his name to Paul. Then he spent the rest of his life spreading the Good News of Jesus throughout the Roman world and writing much of the New Testament of the Bible. His radical shift with God changed the world. Paul encouraged other believers to radically shift as well.

He said: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will,” Romans 12:2.

If anyone has the right to speak into transformation and understanding God’s will, it is Paul.

In what ways have you seen transformation or a radical shift in your own life?

Where do you want a radical change? Is it in the way you see someone? Yourself? Pray Romans 12:2 every day this week.