The Best of the Portals of Prayer

Read: Matthew 25:31-40 / Psalm 35

“Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus … has sent me.”
Acts 9:17

Sent by the Lord

It was a highly unlikely meeting. There was Saul, the fierce antagonist of the followers of Jesus, face-to-face with Ananias, a leading disciple of Jesus in Damascus. Saul had come to Damascus “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” [Acts 9:1]. Only something had intervened before he could carry out his plans. Just outside the city, Saul had encountered Jesus, and that encounter reversed the rest of Saul’s history. Now he waited, temporarily blind, for further direction. It came in the person of Ananias. What could this man say to man of Saul’s reputation? “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus … has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Who but a man in Christ would address his enemy as “brother” and offer him healing and the promise of forgiveness? But that is the way the Lord sends His disciples into a hostile world. We are still called by God, not to destroy the enemy but to discover our brothers but to discover our brothers and sisters for whom Christ died. We are still called, not to bring people to their knees in conquest but to bring them to their knees in acknowledgment that Jesus is Lord. We are called to serve to serve, and thereby serve Jesus.

Help us, O Lord Jesus, to find our brothers and sisters. Amen.

January 25, 1970