Acts: A 14-Day Devotional For MenSample

From Darkness to Light
Acts 26:18

Many believe that humanity’s greatest need is effective leadership, more resources, better health care, improved education, greater cooperation, or bolstered self-esteem. Such solutions assume that our fundamental problems are ineffective governance, poverty, disease, ignorance, intolerance, or depression. In his defense before King Agrippa, Paul offers important insight into humanity’s plight and the full-orbed gospel solution. 

The Bible offers a devastating diagnosis of our basic plight. People have willfully and repeatedly rebelled against God, broken his law, and worshiped created things rather than the glorious Creator. Humans revel in their freedom to live as they choose and do not realize that such “freedom” is in fact bondage to Satan that will ultimately lead to ruin. The gospel of Jesus Christ alone is the comprehensive solution to our desperate condition. Acts 26:18 highlights four crucial features of biblical salvation. 

First, Jesus sent Paul “to open their eyes.” God must give us spiritual eyes to see Jesus as true and glorious (see 2 Cor. 4:4–6). This happened dramatically and uniquely for Paul when the heavenly Lord appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Normally, God grants spiritual sight when people encounter the Lord Jesus through faithful gospel preaching (see Acts 16:14). 

Second, genuine faith involves turning “from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.” Acts 26:20 clarifies that unbelievers “should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.” We must change our fundamental allegiance from Satan to God and begin to live to please our new king, Jesus. 

Third, we must “receive forgiveness of sins.” Forgiveness means that God frees rebellious human beings from their massive guilt and punishment and removes the ultimate penalty for our sins. 

Finally, believers receive “a place among those who are sanctified by faith.” The glorious result of forgiveness and faith is a restored relationship with God, a new family among God’s redeemed people, and a sure eternal inheritance. God did not send an economist, an educator, a doctor, a politician, or a psychologist to address humanity’s greatest need. He sent a Savior, who atoned for our sins by dying in our place and then rose again to be our King forever.—Brian J. Tabb