Acts 9:17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he 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.”

When was Saul born again? On the Damascus road, or when Ananias laid hands on him? Does it matter?

Perhaps not as much as we sometimes make out. But some things can be deduced from this verse:

1. Ananias having been told by God that Saul was His chosen vessel came to him and called him ‘brother’. In Ananias’ mind he was already a brother in Christ.

2. Saul was obedient, and that obedience, as with Abraham consituted faith. Saul asked the Lord what His will was, and had then obeyed it.

3. Saul’s filling with the Holy Spirit was a one off event peculiar to the initiation of his ministry. The term ‘filled’ is a passive aorist verb. Saul was subject to this filling – it came from outside of himself; he did not bring it about himself. The aorist tense indicates a one off event, rather than an ongoing process.

4. After this event Saul was empowered and gifted to preach the Gospel!

Whatever our understanding of spiritual gifts, baptism of the Spirit and/or filling with the Spirit one thing is certain:

We need the Holy Spirit living in us in power to enable us to live godly lives in service of our Master. Paul encouraged us to earnestly desire the higher gifts (1 Corinthians 12:31), the reason is that God might be glorified in our lives as He was and is in Paul’s.

‘And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power’ 1 Corinthians 2:4.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 29th, 2002 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Devotional. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.