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Saul was not a bad man before he encountered the Lord Jesus on the road. He was a devout Jew. He recognised that God had entered into a special relationship with the Jewish people and he lived the consequences of Israel’s election to the full. He longed for the coming of the promised Messiah. His problem was that he did not recognise that Jesus was the fulfilment of that promise. He saw the disciples of this Jesus as a threat to the Jewish covenant with God. He no doubt thought that he was acting rightly by persecuting the Church. That is until, on that road to Damascus, Paul was given a great grace: he encountered Jesus Christ and his life was never the same.

How does that help us, today? That model of Paul’s conversion to Christ was more dramatic that most of us have experienced. We recognise Jesus Christ as Messiah and Lord and we often intend to surrender our lives to him; and yet we hold something back, or we later take something back. Then there are those parts of our lives that we have not surrendered to him, of which we are not quite willing to let go. Sometimes we only later discover aspects of ourselves that have not been given over to him. It is no wonder that the giving of our lives to Christ is a process of lifelong conversion.

Despite the dramatic way the Lord revealed himself to Paul, the same was true for him. On the road to Damascus Paul came to faith in Christ. Still, that was only the beginning of his conversion and it was a struggle. In his letters he writes about fighting the good fight and running the race (2 Tim 4:7), beating his body (1 Cor 9:27), growing from spiritual infancy to maturity (Eph 4:15), engaging in battle with the armour of God (Eph 6:11), and pressing on towards a prize he had yet to reach (Phil 3:14).

And he did reach the prize. His lifelong conversion that began on the road, ended in the complete transformation of his life, led to his remarkable contribution to the life of the Church and ultimately his own salvation and sainthood. The same is possible for us. Our conversions have begun already. We have not missed out. Now we need to run the race, fight the good fight, struggle onwards, to our own sainthood.

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