ACTS 22:10

Paul is speaking to the Jewish multitude telling them what happened when he first met Jesus, and the Bible says in Acts 22:10, “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.” Once Paul was saved, the first thing that he wanted to know was this: “What shall I do, Lord.” If you have been saved by Jesus, that should be your question also: “What shall I do, Lord?” God has a will for you. Right now and right here God has a will for you. Notice what Jesus told Paul concerning finding that will of God. Jesus said, “Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do.”

Jesus did not tell Paul right away all the things that He wanted Paul to do. Jesus told him just one thing: to go to Damascus. And then once Paul was in Damascus, Paul would find out more things about what the Lord wanted him to do. That is exactly how following the Lord works. You are not going to find out everything about God’s will for you today. There is really no such thing as knowing God’s will for your life in regards to the details. You follow Him one step at a time. Each step will lead to the next step. You can count on that. Just make sure that you know what the next step is, but do not worry about two or three or four steps down the line. The Lord will reveal those to you when the time comes. Just make sure that you are confident of the fact that He does have a will for you. Jesus did say to Paul, “All the things which are appointed for thee to do.” Do not ever lose that attitude of surrender to God’s will, and if you have lost it then get it back again. There is something appointed for you to do from God. If you seek it, you will find it. Just make sure that what you are doing is exactly what God wants you to do.

Paul said in Acts 22:11-13, “And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus. And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there, Came unto me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him.” Why is it that Paul was struck blind at this moment in his life? He probably did not know that it was only a temporary blindness, but it may have led to eye problems that he had for the rest of his life. Paul had a thorn in the flesh to make sure that he would trust in the Lord each day.

Why was Paul made blind right when he was first saved? Perhaps it was to teach him that from now on he would be dependent upon others. He had been the energetic and highly motivated Saul of Tarsus. Now he had to learn that to accomplish everything that God wanted him to accomplish he needed other believers to help him. Yes, you have a spiritual gift and maybe more than one, but if you go and exercise your spiritual gifts alone, you will accomplish a lot less than if you do so in conjunction with other believers who also have gifts. That is one of the reasons to be involved in a church assembly of believers. Paul was saved, but he needed someone to take him by the hand and help him get to Damascus. Paul had just talked to Jesus, but Jesus told Paul that Paul would only find what he needed to know by going to Damascus and listening to what another believer had to tell him. You will never become all that God wants you to be unless you receive what God wants you to learn from other Christians. That is why it is so important to have a good pastor-teacher to hear, and why Christian fellowship is so important.

What Ananias said to Paul is given in Acts 22:14-16. “And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth. For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. And now why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” As we have seen all through the book of Acts, Paul was baptized after his conversion. He was converted to Christ on the road to Damascus, and then some hours or days later he was baptized in the city of Damascus. Water baptism is symbolic of spiritual baptism. Spiritual baptism takes place at the time of salvation. You are cleansed from your sins at the time of salvation, and then water baptism is symbolic of that cleansing. For the rest of his life Paul would be motivated by gratitude for what Jesus had done for him to save his soul and to cleanse him of his sins. Paul’s message would always be the correct message: the message of the grace of God that is in Christ Jesus. Paul never taught about works in regards to salvation: only about grace because Paul had received the grace of God.

Ananias told Paul what God’s will for Paul would be, and Ananias told Paul several things on that subject. It is an important subject. Every Christian should want to know what God’s will is for them. Some Christians struggle with this and go long periods of time wondering what is God’s will. Ananias told Paul that he would know God’s will. You can know God’s will. There is absolutely no reason to go on and on and on without knowing the will of the Lord for you. The most important thing in knowing God’s will is wanting to know it. Paul had that requirement. He said the moment he was saved, “What shall I do, Lord?” If you are not willing to do anything, absolutely anything that God might want you to do, then there is no reason that God will show to you His will. Instead He will work in your life in order to wake you up to the fact that it is in your own best interest to desire His will above your own. Do not be fooled by selfishness or your own deceitful self-will. God really does know what is best for you. He loves you. He has a plan. Make sure that you are surrendered and that you seek His plan.

Every believer, when they are first saved, is surrendered to God’s will at least for the short-term. By getting saved, you are surrendering to His will. At the moment that you needed salvation, God’s will for you was to surrender to the call of Christ. The reason that some people do not get saved is because they refuse to surrender. Remember one of the great verses that explains salvation, Romans 10:9, says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” If someone is your Lord, then you are willing to do what they ask. The problem is that after getting saved, some Christians have their own self-will come back in to dominate their lives. There was a song-writer who understood this important spiritual principle of staying surrendered. As a reminder he encouraged people to sing, “I surrender all, I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender. I surrender all.”

Knowing the will of God is centered around the person of Jesus Christ. Ananias said to Paul concerning Jesus that Paul would “see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of His mouth.” Why did Paul so faithfully know and follow the will of God for the rest of his life? Because of Jesus. Paul saw Jesus for the first time on the road to Damascus, and he never took his eyes off of Him from that point on. The same Jesus who came to you to bring you salvation will also come to you to guide you each step of the way. But you must keep your eyes on Him. Remember Jesus appeared to Paul as the Light. The Light will guide you through the darkness of this world. The Light is Jesus.

You must look to Jesus. You must see Him in your mind’s eye, and you must hear from Jesus. We are not talking about visions and dreams. We are talking about the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” You will not hear from Jesus without the Word. It is His means of speaking to you. It is amazing and wonderful just how powerful is the Word and its ability to be used by the Holy Spirit to speak to you in a personal way. Here is an example: There once was a young man who greatly valued higher education. He valued it so much that he thought it was the greatest of all goals to seek it. To him to live was to be educated. He did well enough in high school to receive honors and scholarships to help him in his quest, and then in his first year in college he did very well and was on his way to achieving his life’s goal. On average we would say that he had a noble goal. There was nothing wrong with it. But then something happened. He was saved from his sins by Jesus Christ before his second year of college started. And then shortly after he was saved, he was reading in the book of First Corinthians and he came across the verse that says, “Where is the wise, where is the scribe, where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” When he read these words it was as though Jesus had spoken to him and said, “Do not go back to that secular college. I have something else for you to do.” If you are facing a decision and you do not know what is God’s will, make sure that you look in the Word. Jesus will speak to you from His Word. Whatever you do, do not make the decision without finding out what is God’s will. That would be a terrible mistake that might take you many years to recover from.

Ananias said to Paul that Paul would know his will and see the Just One and hear the voice of his mouth. Ananias also said to Paul in Acts 22:15, “For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard.” If you go God’s way instead of your own way, then you will effectively accomplish the same thing that Paul accomplished. You will be a witness for Christ, using the gifts that God has given you, and going the places that God has sent you. The way to be a witness is to do exactly what it says in Acts 15:22. It says, “For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard.” How do you be a witness in this world? Just tell people what Jesus has done for you and what Jesus has revealed to you. If Jesus has saved you from your sins, then He has done something for you that others need to hear about.

Notice the next thing that happened in the life of the Apostle Paul. It shows another important element concerning how to find God’s will in a particular situation. Acts 22:17-18 says, “And it came to pass, that when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance; And saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me.” Paul prayed. If he had not prayed, he would not have gotten this next instruction from Jesus concerning what Jesus wanted him to do and where Jesus wanted him to go. Prayer changes things, and one of the things that it changes is your ability to properly discern the will of God. It is important to know the will of God. If you want to know the will of God about a certain matter, then pray about it. “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.”

Another thing to notice about this situation is the fact that Paul was in Jerusalem and probably had every reason to stay there; but Jesus told Paul to leave Jerusalem. If you are not absolutely certain that God wants you to go somewhere else, then it is best to stay right where you are. One thing that is for certain: if God wants you to go somewhere else, it is not difficult for Jesus to make it clear to you what He wants. That is, as long as you are truly surrendered to Him, keeping your eyes upon Him, feeding upon His Word, and praying to Him about His will: He will let you know somehow and some way. Remember the Lord knows what is best for you. Jesus knew that it was best for Paul to leave Jerusalem. Paul was going to be ineffective in Jerusalem, and the Lord knew that and the Lord wanted Paul’s life to count for something. Jesus said to Paul, “Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me.”

In the next few verses we see one of the things that can keep a believer from going God’s way and doing God’s will and being the witness for Christ that he can be. It did not happen to Paul, but it could have because of what he said. Continuing with what Paul said to the Lord in Acts 22:19-21 the Bible says, “And I said, Lord they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee. And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him. And he said unto me, Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.” Paul began to think that he was not worthy, and he began to think of his past failures, and he began to have doubts that his witness would be received. Do not let the accuser accuse you, and do not accuse yourself. You were saved by the grace of God through Christ, and your ministry will be a faith ministry by the grace of God through Christ. Understand that you are a sinner saved by grace, and also understand that God’s grace is greater than your sin. Forget the past, and just do what the Lord Jesus wants you to do now. Depart when He wants you to depart, and stay when He wants you to stay; and He will take care of the audience that He gives to you and the results. Speak about Jesus and His grace to you.

Perhaps you have never come to know the grace of God that is in Christ Jesus. Perhaps you have never surrendered to Jesus for salvation. If not, today you can turn from your sins and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ.

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