In a blinding experience on a dusty road from Jerusalem to Damascus Paul the Pharisee met Jesus Christ.

He was transformed and translated in a moment.
Born again as he met the risen glorified Christ and in that same moment ‘translated’ from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.

If we’re Christians we’ve had the same two things happen to us.

Why then don’t we have lives that resemble Paul’s?

Where is the zeal and passion that burned in his heart?
Where is the purpose and service that brought that passion out of his heart and into a needy world?

In the very very early hours this morning I was awakened by two passages, a foggy mist of Scripture pulling me up from slumber to life defining truth.

Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” And he trembling and astonished said, “Lord what do you want me to do?” And Jesus said, “rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
Acts 9:2-9

These two questions are the pillars of Paul’s life from that day forward.

Who are you Lord?
What do you want me to do?

Discovering God measure by measure, day by day.
Pursuing God’s purpose, His plan for over 30 years.

Look at the passage below from Philippians.
Do you see it?
The two threads entwined reaching across the years of Paul’s life from the Damascus Road to Nero’s prison.

Two questions he has spent a lifetime seeking to answer.

that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Phillipians 3:10-12

that I may know Him.
that I may lay hold of.

His whole life’s intent was to get to know Jesus and to do, to lay hold of, that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of him.

These two stripped him of every other self-directed impulse and goal.
Their force held him to a course, a trajectory aimed at nothing else but the will of God for His life.

Paul saw what we too often miss.

We’ve been plucked out of this present darkness and dropped into the kingdom of God’s Son FOR A UNIQUE PURPOSE.
There’s nothing random about salvation.
There’s nothing accidental in your salvation.

Jesus doesn’t want you to miss it.
He laid hold of each of us for a purpose.

Have you laid hold of that purpose?

Let the truth clear out the clutter of motivations and yearnings in your heart.

Zero in on getting to know Jesus and laying hold on His purpose for your life.
He waits for us without judgment, without disapproval.
He longs for us to seek Him out, to come to Him,  to have a deep cry to know Him, stirring and rising from our hearts in a torrent of holy desire for God Himself.

Will you dedicate yourself to unearthing His incredible purpose for you?
That thing, that God thing, divinely designed for your gifts, your personality, your mind, and your energies, your place in the world, in your family, in your job, and in your church.

It’s waiting there for you.
He’s waiting there for you.