TWO QUESTIONS
"And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me. And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? And I answered, Who art Thou, Lord? And He said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, Whom thou persecutest. And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of Him that spake to me. And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do." (Paul's account of his conversion, Acts 22:6-10).
What an extraordinary
conversion Paul had! To have a light
shine on him from above, and to have the Lord speak to him directly from heaven
is incredible; but what really intrigues me is how violent this religious man
had become toward the followers of Christ.
Before his conversion, he was busy rounding up the Christians in order
to have them imprisoned and slain. Odd
behavior from a man who claimed that, "touching
the righteousness which is in the law," he was blameless! Doesn't sound righteous to me, but Paul was
convinced that he was right.
God had to get Paul's
attention in a dramatic way in order to change the course of his life. When God did get his attention, there were
only two questions that Paul had to ask His Lord. These two questions are the same ones that
Paul continued to ask through the course of his ministry, and they are the only
two questions that hold any relevancy to our own daily Christian walk as well. They are the two questions that should burn constantly
on every Christian’s heart; and, in fact, if a Christian should ever cease to
ask them, then he has started down the road of pride and unrighteousness.
The first question
that Paul asked as he lay in the road blinded by the dazzling light was,
"Who are You, Lord?" This is
the most crucial question that man can ask, and the answer isn't as obvious as
it seems. Man is intent on creating God
after his own image rather than seeking to know what He is really like and then
conforming to the image that He reveals.
We apply many humanistic and sentimental attributes to God which He does
not possess. We try to fit God in a box
of our own making, and fail to realize that He fills the universe and cannot be
contained in our boxes, and dogmas, and creeds. As Solomon said upon completing his
magnificent temple for God in Jerusalem, "But
will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? behold, heaven and the
heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less this house which I have
built!" (2 Chronicles 6:18).
What we comprehend of
God today is sufficient for today, but it will not do tomorrow. We must be ever seeking to know Him more and
more. Jesus told His disciples, "I have yet many things to say unto you,
but ye cannot bear them now." (John 16:12). Learning to know the LORD is a lifetime
project, and we can only know Him through His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.” (John 14:7
NKJV). We grow into the knowledge of God step by step and day by day, and we
do this by spending time with Jesus and studying to know Him. Then,
we can see and know the nature of the Father through the character of the Son. We must reach certain levels of spiritual
maturity before we can understand or handle various aspects of the Lord's
nature. Think of it in terms of a
relationship with a good friend, or with your spouse. Even after 53 years of marriage, my wife and
I still discover things about each other that we didn't fully understand
before.
We must ever be
asking, and seeking, to know who the Lord is.
Our quest to know Him must never end.
Also, we must never assume
that we know Him well enough. Paul made
that mistake, and he had years of learning and dedication under his belt. The very God that he professed to serve all
his life was the same God that he was asking, "Who art Thou." There
are those today who have professed Christianity for their whole lives who
really don't know whom they serve. They
have given years of service to a church, but have never learned to become
obedient to Christ. We must seek to know the Lord if we ever expect to become as the
Lord.
Once the Lord reveals
Himself to us in response to the first question, we realize that there is
something required on our part. It is
like a two-edged sword. We cannot see
the Lord without seeing ourselves as well.
We see His beauty, and it reveals our unseemliness. We see His righteousness, and it reveals our
sin. We see His light, and it reveals
our blindness. No wonder Paul was struck
blind after seeing the light of the Lord's glory. The Prophet Isaiah tells of his experience
with seeing the Lord, "In the year
that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and
lifted up, and His train filled the temple." What was Isaiah's response to seeing his
Lord? "Then said I, Woe is
me! for I am undone; because I am
a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips:
for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts." (Isaiah 6:1, 5).
The second question
that Paul asked was, "What shall I
do, Lord?" This is the proper
response to what we see as a result of asking the first question. To seek the Lord's will over our own is what
God is wanting from us. Many struggle to
understand God's will for their lives.
They don't know what it is He wants of them. This is usually because they haven't asked
and understood the first question. We cannot know God's will if we don't
know who He is. This is why
there are so many who are doing the work of the Lord today, but don't have the
faintest idea of who He is. This is what
Paul was doing. Very busy for a God he
didn't know. Once we see Jesus, and He
reveals His nature to us, it is very easy to see what is required of us; and
then, by His grace and the power of His Spirit, we can become changed into the
image that we see. "But we all, with open
face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same
image from glory to glory, even
as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3:18).
This question, "What wilt Thou have me to do?" should
always be the cry of our heart when we see more of the Lord. There are those who desire to see the Lord,
but, once He reveals Himself to them, they go on their own way because they
either don't want to change, or don't believe that they can. Scripture warns us not to be like these. "But
be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the Word, and not a
doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he
beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of
man he was. But whoso looketh into the
perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein,
he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be
blessed in his deed. (James 1:22-25).
God has poured out His
Holy Spirit in these last days in order to empower His people to become the
sons of God. He is transforming His
people by the renewing of their minds so that they can die to their selfish
nature and present themselves to Him as living sacrifices. "As
many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His
name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the
will of man, but of God." (John 1:12-13). God has not left us to our own devices. What He asks of us, He also will
perform. Faith is the victory that
overcomes the world. God Himself is
working in us to reveal Himself and His will to us, and then also to perform that which He requires (see
Philippians 2:13). Never be discouraged,
Dear Ones, God has great things in store for those who love and seek Him. Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of
His might! Be of good courage, and He
will do all that He has promised. Never
cease to ask, "Who art Thou, Lord,"
and, "What wilt Thou have me to do?"
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