Jesus, Ananias & Paul

4 And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
5 And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Acts 9:4,5

You read this encounter with reverence. The Lord introduces himself by the name of his humanity - Jesus.

You recognise that Saul is a Hebrew name and Paul is Greek. Jesus gets very personal with Paul in this visitation. When he calls his name twice he is employing emphasis. This is important to the Lord Jesus and he wants to get the urgency of it to Paul – He addressed him in Hebrew. That was how far love was willing to go. Some would have imagined that a bolt of lightning striking Paul from heaven would be a more emphatic way with Jesus, but that’s very unlike Jesus. Love governs the outflow of power. He even comes with a question to Paul!

In the words of the Lord Jesus we see Paul persecuting the Lord, but the Lord not retaliating in Paul’s terms. In reality when Paul persecuted the church, he was persecuting Jesus. The hurt of the church was Jesus hurting. Jesus was not interested in the death of Paul, but Paul didn’t know that Jesus was not interested in his death. He thought that there was open and mutual hostility between Jesus and Paul, but Jesus shows Paul that the hostility was only on Paul’s side. The thing is a lot of believers that were suffering then didn’t know this fact, the same holds true today also.

Love met Paul on the road to Damascus. What Paul saw in the eyes of the Lord Jesus changed Paul forever.

Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them Heb 7:25

In this church age, Jesus doesn’t live to attack people – even the sworn enemies of the church. The Lord Jesus instructs Ananias concerning Paul. Jesus was in effect releasing his intercession through Ananias. Ananias was in the intercessions of the Lord Jesus when he walked to Paul that day. Jesus was pouring out love through Ananias to Paul.

[See Acts 9: 1 – 18]

Ananias was not to stay on bended knees. He was to walk to a specific street. Jesus was walking towards Paul still. Love is in hot pursuit of Paul. Every step was a death in a sense, for here was Ananias walking towards a man that has come to take him captive or so he thinks.
Saul the problem had stopped being.
Ananias' mind didn’t know it.
Ananias’ Lord was the answer. Ananias was simply to carry his master to where Paul was and allow his master stretch his hands out as the hands of Ananias, for the hands of Ananias were now the hands of Christ upon the earth.

So you wonder “if Jesus could appear to Paul on Damascus road, why does he need to appear to Ananias instructing him about laying on of hands to restore sight to Paul?”

That question is exactly same as “why did Jesus have to come to the earth?”

God gave the earth to man in Genesis. His desire getting done on earth will involve man. God in heaven needed a man on earth in order to bring about a change that will affect the earth. This man is Christ Jesus. That is the only man that has fully submitted to God. Jesus is in heaven now at the right hand of God seated and exalted. The principle still holds. Jesus is the head of a body called the church. The Lord Jesus and this body form what is called Christ. Technically then God still has Jesus on earth in the form of his church. That which God wants to get done he will do through the church – the body of Christ. This is borne out in the fact that the Lord Jesus tells Paul that when he touches the church he has touched the Lord. It also works the other way round - Jesus could touch Paul through his body on earth.

Jesus needed a hand put on Paul. He speaks to a member of that church. In effect he is still the one doing it for Ananias is a member of the body. Ananias has a hand that can be used to touch Paul. Jesus is the head of the church. He does the thinking and acts out through his body very much like your brain could give an instruction to your mouth to open up in order to receive the food that your finger is bringing. The brain picks up the food through the finger and receives it into the body through the mouth.

Not every believer was called out that night to go see Paul. That was unnecessary. Ananias would be making a big mistake to try to get the whole of Damascus involved. All that Ananias could think of was Paul; in reality his thoughts were an outflow of the thoughts of Jesus on the matter. This was between Jesus and Ananias and the Lord Jesus had made a claim on Ananias to respond in love.

Trouble starts when Ananias rightly hears God’s heart on the matter and thinks to focus every Christian mind in Damascus on this. He was correct in his passion to go straight to Paul, but would be legalistic in trying to get every single believer in Damascus to come along. This was Jesus’ specific instruction to Ananias. It is something that will involve Ananias very life. Ananias is not required to judge other believer’s sensitivity by their passion over the save-the-Saul-mission.

All that Jesus required he already had in the person of Ananias.

The same mastermind that defeated the enemy is the same active within the church today. He is releasing the reality of that victory through his ministry in you and through you. What he accomplished then was complete; he is expressing this completeness involving the members of his body – you and I. This is releasing ourselves to his all-ability to save others. This works!

Often we try to convince others to do things that only the Lord should speak to them about. Then at other times we expect them to be as passionate about the “vision” as we are. This is guaranteed to fail.

Jesus speaks to every member of his body – he has been doing it for thousands of years and he is good at it. I am smart when I realise this and cooperate with what Jesus is doing in the other believers that Christ is bringing along my path. We are to realise that vision doesn’t flow from us to them, but from the head of the church to every member of his body. I am to be a helper of the vision that the head of the Church has given to each member of his body – every member has something to supply.

There is a freedom that comes from trusting Christ to perfect that which he started in his own people. He will involve you in many lives and many lives in yours, but none is required to be a substitute for the headship that Christ and Christ alone can supply. In reality you are giving out of the supply of Christ in you in such a way as to release the supply of Christ in the other brother. You come to accept that Christ within believers is their hope of glory.

You will not get passionate about every vision in the church today – you cannot afford to. There are things that the head of the church will get you deeply involved with and you will have peace about this. You wouldn’t use how easy or hard the road is as the measure of success or genuineness- his Spirit will convey to you the things in the heart of Jesus and you will know. The head of the church wants to bring you exact information for he is the intelligence of his body, the church.

…to be continued