Paul's experience of Christ coming for him is meant to be an example to us. Not the circumstances but the principles that were at work in his encounter with Christ. There were four factors that combined to change his life that serve as examples for us to follow.

First, Christ activated his conscience. Saul of Tarsus, as he was, had held the clothes of the men while they stoned Stephen and he was approving of his death. On the road to Damascus he had time to reflect on that murderous act with shame and guilt. He was hell bent upon doing the same with believers in Damascus until he realized that he was really persecuting the One who stood behind Stephen, Jesus Christ himself. The voice from heaven said to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" We may not have had such a violent past but all of us have skeletons in our closet. All of us have addictions and obsessions that control us. All of us have things on our conscience that trouble us. All of us have not done what we ought to have done, and have done what we ought on to have done. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. As Paul wrote later: "I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing." (Romans 7:18,19)

Second, Christ illuminated his mind. He came to see that the Resurrection was no myth or deceit: it was God's great act of vindicating his crucified Messiah. "Who are you, Lord?" he asked in awe. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" was the reply. That was the revelation that bowled him over as the light flashed around him and he fell to the ground. Jesus was alive, addressing him personally. I doubt if he understood much more at the time. He must have been confused but he knew that his thinking up to that point had been dead wrong. He had to come to the end of himself and accept the new revelation he had been given. His growth in understanding it all came later. You don't have to know all about how electricity works to turn on the light and enjoy its illumination.

Blaise Pascal, renowned mathematician, inventor of the calculating machine, who had pursued rational scientific proofs for his theories received an illumination of his mind on November 23, 1654. He recorded a description of his experience on a piece of parchment which he sowed into his coat and was found on him when he died. "FIRE, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars. Certitude, Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace. God of Jesus Christ. ... Jesus Christ. I have separated myself from him: I have fled from him, denied him, crucified him. Let me never be separated from him..."

Third, Christ touched his will. Saul realized that a reality like this, an experience like this, a voice like this, could not be shrugged off and ignored. He had to decide what to do about it. Was he going to continue to slaughter the Christians, or was he going to join them? It was a matter of his will. Which way would he go? He did in fact allow himself to be led, a willing captive, into Damascus. From now on it would be Christ's way, not his own. He had no idea what the future held. He simply knew who held the future, and he put his life in Christ's hands. The element of will, of decision, is critical in Christian faith and discipleship. It may only be implicit, but it has to be there. When absolute Love addresses me, I have to reply. We may want to stay in control but when the Lord says to us, "get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do" we must either resist the Spirit, disobey the command, or surrender to his leading. To resist is to die, to surrender is to live.

Fourth, Christ transformed the whole of the rest of his life. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. What must have gone through his mind in those three days? What goes through your mind when you face a crisis and you come to end of yourself? He is broken down and helpless for the first time in his life. He admits he knows nothing - that he has been on the wrong track. He is ready to receive the ministry of Ananias who is sent to him by Jesus in a vision. He laid his hands on Saul and said, "Brother Saul, the Lord - Jesus who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here - has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit." Scales fell from his eyes, he got up and was baptized. He joined the same disciples that a few days before he would have despised. He wanted to tell others about Jesus. He was willing to face opposition. He found prayer a new and exhilarating reality. He grew in strength and understanding. He was willing to embrace a career of hardship and suffering. It was a total turnaround. Leo Tolstoy experienced something just as radical:

"Five years ago I came to believe in Christ's teaching, and my life suddenly changed. I ceased to desire what I had previously desired, and began to desire what I formerly did not want. What had previously seemed to me good seemed evil, and what had seemed evil seemed good. It happened to me as it happens to a man who goes out on some business, and on the way decides that the business is unnecessary and returns home. All that was on his right is now on his left, and all that was on his left is now on his right."

This coming of Christ into a person's life may be a crisis or a process. Even a crisis like birth is really a process. An entirely sudden change is rare. Always there is some history behind the experience. In any case, suddenness is not the heart of the matter. Birth leads to growth. We are born to grow. And so it is in the Christian life. Some of us can remember when we surrendered to Christ. Others cannot. What is important is that we know that we have surrendered to Christ. Saul of Tarsus was convicted and converted, and immediately got involved in the local church of Christian believers. He became a witness to others outside the church.

A young man wrote to John Stott in 1988. "I regard myself as having a somewhat insecure and rootless background. My mother is Brazilian, of Italian extraction, and my father is English. In 1980 - still going through a severe adolescence - I went to Argentina. It was near the end of my time there that I experienced a marvelous change within me. I started to thirst to know the truth, whatever it might be. I read Basic Christianity... the words seem to bounce out at me from the page. I felt convinced I'd discovered the truth although as yet I didn't know that Jesus was God and that he was calling me to an intimate relationship with him. It was only later that year when I was back in England... that I finally made a personal act of surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ." (John Stott, Basic Christianity, p.11)

Have you made that surrender? Pray: "Come, Lord Jesus." (Material in this message comes by permission from Michael Green, Evangelism Through the Local Church, pp.34-40)

Subscribe to Ted's blog at www.amelichapel.com/blog. His new book, ENCOURAGEMENT IN A WORLD OF HURT: The Message of the Book of Revelation, is available at www.amazon.com