Original date written 1/30/10
When I was younger and fresh in my walk with Christ I was always afraid to tell others about God, Jesus, Church, or the Bible. I always felt inadaquete as if I didn’t know enough about any of those things to really make my point known. I felt as though I should leave that up to the pastors and preachers of this world. After all they are trained to know the Bible. They study it (or are supposed to) and they have such a way of explaining it that I never could.
Little did I know that I was going to be one of these so-called pastors.
Its not until now that I have realized. Even with all of my “formal teaching” in the Bible and all the time I have spent alone in my studies, I am still learning new things about all this, everyday. If I wait until I know everything about God, Jesus, the Bible, before I tell anyone, I will waste my entire life walking around with my mouth shut.
There is a story in John 9 that spoke so clearly to me. It is a very popular story, mostly because it displays Gods awesome power of healing and gratitude. It is a story of a man who had been blind since birth. Jesus approaches him as he is begging on the street, Jesus picks up some dirt, spits in His hand and creates a mud that He puts over the mans eyes. He then tells him to wash the mud off in the Pool of Siloam and the man who had been blind since birth, could see.
The next part of this story is what amazes me. The once blind man then gets put in front of the pharisees and they continue to ask him “who is this man that has healed you?” The once blind man is so excited he just simply says” Look! Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” They continue to ask him questions about him. Baffled the guys answers again almost confused about why this is even an issue. Why aren’t they excited! He was no longer blind! So again he says “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again?” The blind man had no idea what had happened. He just knew the results of it.
If we have accepted Jesus, we have been healed of our spiritual blindness. We were once blind but now we can see.
It doesn’t matter if we know how it happened or why it happened, we just know that it happened. That is enough to get excited about! That is enough to tell people about!
In the next book called Acts we read about a man named Ananias in chapter 9. Now Ananias is a disciple of God. Ananias receives a vision from God to meet a man named Saul.
Coincidently Saul is also blind at this point.
Saul had been blinded by God after he appeared to him and told him to go to where Ananias would be. Now Ananias shows up. Leads Saul in prayer. Heals his eyes. Saul accepts that Jesus is the Lord. And Ananias goes on his way never to be heard from again. This man Saul who was known for murdering Christians and persecuting them, eventually changed his name to Paul and wrote majority of what we have as the New Testament today.
One man who is only mentioned for about 10 verses in the entire Bible, one man who is just a small portion, who we may read over many times, lead the one person to Christ who changed Christianity today as we know it.
So my question to you is…. Who is a potential Saul in your life. Who is someone that maybe God has been showing His light to and is just waiting for someone to talk to him about it. Who is someone that is spiritually blind in your life? Who is someone you have felt God leading you to talk to but you have felt inadequate? Who could you talk to that could potentially change Christianity from here on out.
Ananias was not a major guy. He was simply a segment in a much bigger story. Yet, he played a substantial part in the Bible as we know it today.
If God has been leading you to talk to someone about Jesus this month, do it. Don’t pass the opportunity up. Who knows, it could be the next Paul…
Potential Ananias,
Stefan