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The Ananias Perspective
Got to be in conversation with Christ
Acts 9:10 There was a disciple in Damascus by the name of Ananias. The Master spoke to him in a vision: "Ananias." "Yes, Master?" he answered.
11-12 "Get up and go over to Straight Avenue. Ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus. His name is Saul. He’s there praying. He has just had a dream in which he saw a man named Ananias enter the house and lay hands on him so he could see again."
13-14 Ananias protested, "Master, you can’t be serious. Everybody’s talking about this man and the terrible things he’s been doing, his reign of terror against your people in Jerusalem! And now he’s shown up here with papers from the Chief Priest that give him license to do the same to us."
Consider you are living in during the time of WW2, the early 1940’s. What do you do when God tells you that He has chosen a person to lead Christians across the world. This person is going to talk to a great number of Non-Christians in the world. In fact, he’ll be reaching thousands upon thousands of people. And he will talk to presidents, prime ministers, and the heads of governments across the globe. Oh, and by the way his name is Adolph Hitler. Well that’s exactly what Ananias had to deal with when God comes to him saying that Saul of Tarsus is the guy chosen for the job.
That’s right, Saul the man known for killing Christians as if they were flies. The man grown and educated since birth to be a Pharisee; the one respected by every other Jewish leader, and probably Roman leader, too, in the Roman empire. A man that walks around like James Bond with a government sanctioned license to kill on demand at his own prerogative.
We don’t know for sure but judging from his reply, Ananias may have known a number of the people Saul had killed; a number of the places Paul’s sting had hit. I’m sure Ananias thought something along the lines of “of all the people in the world God chose Saul, and He then decided to send ME to go help him.”
But pause for a moment and think:
- You are a Christian
- You now know that the most renowned Christian killer is in your midst
- You know many - a great number personally, even - that have been killed by this man.
- You have direct access to his location
- You are on your way to see him
- AND ... you could probably corral a number of guys together, go to where he was, and have him beaten, maimed, or even killed - and you’re sure that NOBODY would hate you for doing it. In fact you’d probably get more praise than imaginable for being the man that killed Saul, the Christian Killer. And if you were concerned what people would think you could even just make it a quiet event and hide the body so no one would ever know.
Revenge is on your mind, your heart and you struggle with whether or not this is a “genuine” call - surely God must be mistaken. I know it never happened, but there’s a first time for everything.
Will you give him life or give him death.
Will you curse this man or bless him.
God gave the command but it’s your choice to determine whether you will follow or not.
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1. Consider blessing the enemy
Rom 12:14 Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.
We can either curse or bless - the choice is ours.
The summer after my freshman year, a friend and I took a road trip to the Grand Canyon. We had just seen the movie “Grand Canyon” with Danny Glover, and said that we just had to do it. It took us 4 days to get there and when we arrived I was so taken back that I cried and called home to tell everyone.
One of the most amazing things about being in a place like that is that when you yell into nearly any part of the canyon you have an echo effect unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. No matter what you say it is magnified, amplified, and sent out for miles, and as the sound travels the sound literally passes through every person, create, and object in its way.
In the most simplistic and binary of terms, in life we are either building up or tearing down, giving life or giving destruction, blessing or cursing! And what’s both exciting and scary about the echos of life.
If we tear down, give destruction, and curse, the effects are tremendous. So many families are living with the echoes of destruction initiated generations ago. Yet because people are in the path of that echo, there lives are forever changed. Please pray for our family because Anne and I are dealing with this very issue - because destruction was allowed so many years ago, we are now dealing with so much hurt and pain and suffering. When we live in a way that curses instead of blesses the effects echo throughout history - look at our world and the problematic issues we face globally and you will see that the reasons we deal with what we are dealing with is because of the echoes we started so many years ago.
But if we speak life, and build up, and encourage, the effects are just as incomprehensible! Anne received an e-mail last week from one of the young leaders that was leading a campus ministry at Virginia Tech. The young lady was speaking to the current leaders there who are remarking that a campus ministry is having nearly 200 African American students meeting every week and they want to know how this thing started and who helped it happen. I praise God that a scared college girl took the chance on building life into the African American students on the campus of Virginia Tech. And years later we can look and see how powerful those echoes have become.
Before we can even begin with the issue of revenge, I believe we need to do an assessment on our blessing/cursing ratio and see where wee fall. Not that I believe dealing with revenge will ever be easy - nor should it be expected to be - but I can believe that the closer our ratio falls towards the “blessing” side of the scales the easier it is to at least come to God in sorting through the desire to seek revenge.
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2. Consider backing off from the enemy
Rom 12:17-19 Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. "I’ll do the judging," says God. "I’ll take care of it."
The desire for revenge is natural (because we are human); that doesn’t mean it is right or best, it’s just natural. Even those martyred for Christ want revenge:
Rev 6:9-11
9-11When he ripped off the fifth seal, I saw the souls of those killed because they had held firm in their witness to the Word of God. They were gathered under the Altar, and cried out in loud prayers, "How long, Strong God, Holy and True? How long before you step in and avenge our murders?"
But I believe there is a reason why God is in charge of the payback - because we don’t always know. We can have all the evidence of everything that is going on, yet still place the wrong verdict.
"I’ll do the judging," says God. "I’ll take care of it."
But trusting God means that we need to:
- allow God to do the judging: this means that there is the possibility we could be wrong.
- allow God to take care of it: this doesn’t always mean that God’s going to throw in the final lightening bolt and destroy the other person.
- allow God to take care of it: this means the punishment may not fit the crime as we see in our minds.
Got to be willing to trust Christ to do the impossible - even in the lives of other people
“I’ll do the judging,” says God, “I’ll take care of it”
15-16 But the Master said, "Don’t argue. Go! I have picked him as my personal representative to non-Jews and kings and Jews. And now I’m about to show him what he’s in for—the hard suffering that goes with this job."
The beauty is in the results, God said:
Psalm 110 1(A)The LORD says to my Lord: "(B)Sit at My right hand Until I make (C)Your enemies a footstool for Your feet."
For the longest time in my life I ALWAYS saw that verse as “yea, one day I’m gonna tell them what to do; one day I’ll rise above them and they’ll see.” But then one day while visiting the home of an elder church member for the first time in my life I heard the word “footstool” used in real life. And I had a 23 year old revelation: a footstool only serves to lift up your feet, to make you comfortable, and to help you rest.
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3. Consider besting the enemy
Rom 12:20-21 Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.
And I think the most difficult part of the process is the followthrough. Kill em’ with kindness:
Exodus 23 Laws of Justice and Mercy
1 "Do not spread false reports. Do not help a wicked man by being a malicious witness.
In our final 2 "Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, 3 and do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.
4 "If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it back to him. 5 If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help him with it.
6 "Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. 7 Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.
8 "Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.
9 "Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt
Remember that the enemy isn’t that person, it’s something greater. I’m preparing right now for a meeting tomorrow that I’m not looking forward to. I already feel as if I’m going to be blindsided by about 8 enemies - but I know I’ve got to face them.
And so Ananias follows through with these commands and does that for Saul.
Got to be willing to face the enemy
17-19 So Ananias went and found the house, placed his hands on blind Saul, and said, "Brother Saul, the Master sent me, the same Jesus you saw on your way here. He sent me so you could see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit." No sooner were the words out of his mouth than something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes—he could see again! He got to his feet, was baptized, and sat down with them to a hearty meal.
I wonder what that moment felt like. I wonder what he was thinking standing in the doorway of that house ready to go in. I wonder what he felt when the door opened and he saw that man sitting there at the table. How hard was it reaching out, touching the man who was responsible for the deaths of an unnumbered amount of Christians.
But he followed through and scales fell from Saul’s eyes - and immediately this brother was on fire. Sure he had to gain credibility, and go through a whole bunch of death threats, but the face of Christianity was changed forever .
I cant’ say it is easy getting through the revenge game, but I know that in this world I don’t know a whole lot but God does. And so even in the face of the most unpredictable of persons, not matter even how evil of an individual we know them to be, God can still work the impossible - but only if we are willing to best the evil one and let God take care of the situation.
