Ananias (3)—Obedient Messenger - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2024

Then a certain Ananias came to me; and he stood and said to me, "Brother Saul, receive your sight The God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know His will, and see the Just One, and hear the voice of His mouth. For you will be His witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord."
Acts 22:12-16

Ananias (3)—Obedient Messenger
Ananias wasted no time. He went to Saul and addressed him. "Brother Saul," he began. Their brotherhood as fellow Jews was now being replaced by the brotherhood fellow believers in Christ share through new birth into the family of God. How warm this greeting must have sounded in the ears of this blind former terrorist, no longer a Pharisee of the Pharisees, exceedingly enraged against the saints of God. (Neither religiously-inspired nor governmentally-undertaken persecution of Christians is anything new; both go right back to the days of the apostles!)

Paul went on in his testimony to the Jews on the stairs of the Roman barracks to share the message Ananias in obedience to the Lord had brought him. The God of their fathers had chosen Saul for four special purposes: (1) to know His will, (2) to see the Just One, (3) to hear the voice of His mouth, and (4) to be His witness to all men. So, he was now to arise and be baptized. By thus taking his stand with the Lord Jesus in baptism—the symbol of death and resurrection to new life—his sins as a member of the nation that cried, "Crucify Him," and "His blood be on us and on our children," would be washed away. He was now to call upon Jesus as Lord instead of blaspheming the person of Jesus.

Ananias faithfully carried out the commission given him by the Lord. We too are told to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mk. 16:15)! Let's do this faithfully!

Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.