This is the most famous conversion story ever told, and what intrigues us so much is that within the span of a few days this man undergoes a complete turnaround. Talk about extreme makeover---this is the extreme spiritual makeover.

When Saul/Paul is first introduced in Acts, he is out to "destroy the church" (8:1-3). It wasn't that he was a psychopath but that he was a Pharisee, so devoted to God's law that he saw this upstart group as a threat to the Jewish people and faith.

From Acts and from his own epistles we learn that Saul was a devout man, trained by the greatest rabbis of his day, deeply knowledgeable of the Scriptures, and utterly devoted to God as he understood him. Furthermore, he was a cosmopolitan man, a Roman citizen, fluent in Greek and Latin as well as his own Hebrew tongue. He could be either the church's worst enemy or best missionary---and by God's grace he was able to make the transition from the one to the other.

Saul didn't wait for anyone else to give him orders; he asked for letters from the high priest giving him authority to arrest Christians in the synagogue in Damascus. As he and his party neared the city, a bright light flashed, and, falling to the ground, he heard a voice from heaven: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord," Saul asked, trembling. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." This wasn't a pronouncement but a personal conversation.

That means two things. First, this wasn't an angel visitation or a trance but a personal appearance by the Lord. Second, Jesus informs Saul that in persecuting the church he has been persecuting Jesus himself. Jesus so identifies with the church---which Saul/Paul would come to call the "body of Christ"---that anything done to the church is done to him personally.

That's it---no other orders except that Saul should proceed into the city, where he will find out what to do next. The only trouble is that he is temporarily blind. This was a real light! Making his way into the city with the help of his companions (we never learn what happens to them), he ends up in someone's house---sightless and so scared or moved that he declines anything to eat or drink.

It's the Lord who makes the arrangements, calling on Ananias, who, understandably hesitant at first, makes his way over the Saul to lay healing hands on him and give him his marching orders from the Lord. Saul, in the Lord's words, "is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel" (see also 22:4-16), and in the process he will "suffer for my name" (9:15-16). Ananias baptizes Saul, and within days Saul is preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

A few years later, in what is likely the first of the many letters he would write to the churches he founded, we can see how Paul himself reflects on this experience of radical change: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). Saul, the Christ hater, died on that road to Damascus, and Paul, the Christ follower, came to life. And it was all by faith in the Son of God.

Faith means not just believing in Jesus as a matter of fact but trusting in him so much that he becomes our very identity. We live in him and he lives in us, so that we receive all the blessings of his life, death, and resurrection.