Turned Around

"At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God."
Acts 9:20 (NIV)

How do you know if a conversion experience was real?

Saul gets baptized. He regains his strength. He spends a few days gathering himself. And then he walks into a synagogue, the very kind of room he was traveling 150 miles to control, and opens his mouth.

The crowd packs in, expecting what they came to hear. Saul the Pharisee and Saul the enforcer. Saul, who shut down the movement in Jerusalem. They expect a rejection of Jesus of Nazareth so devastating that it ends the conversation for good.

What they get instead is Paul, fearlessly preaching the Gospel.

Conversion means turning around. It’s not a feeling and not about having a dramatic moment. It’s a spiritual reversal so complete that the man of hate becomes the man of love. And it shows up immediately in the choices he makes, the words he speaks, and the room he is willing to walk into.

A pastor once said it this way: "If you are not different after you meet Jesus than you were before you met Jesus, then you never met Jesus." The test is not the intensity of what you felt on the day it happened. The test is the direction of your life from that day forward.

Look at your life this week, from your priorities and relationships, to your default reaction when no one is watching. That is where conversion shows up or doesn't. And if you see evidence of real change, take heart–that is not you. That is the risen Lord at work in you, and He is not finished yet.

This weekend, as you celebrate the freedom this nation was founded on, remember the deeper freedom Paul discovered, the kind no government can grant and no circumstance can take away.

Prayer: Lord, I don't want an experience. I want a transformation. Show me where my life still looks like before You. I surrender those places to You today, not just in words but in what I actually do tomorrow. In Jesus' Name, Amen.