“And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know His will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of His mouth” (Acts 22:14).
This phrase, “God of our Fathers,” and equivalent phrases occur more than seventy times in the Bible. It is important for us to realize that the God whom we worship today is the same God whom our fathers worshipped when they came to this country and also was worshipped by Noah and Abraham and David thousands of years ago. God does not change with the times. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8).
Ananias of Damascus, in our text verse, informed the newly converted Saul of Tarsus that he had been chosen by that same God of their fathers to make three great changes in his life. He must learn to know God’s will for his life; become able to see with spiritual eyesight the righteous Judge of all things; and understand God’s revelation in the existing Scriptures and (in Paul’s special case) to receive God’s new revelation regarding Christ and His church.
God today would give each of us a similar three-fold charge in our own lives. We need to be “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Colossians 1:9). We need also to pray that “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto (us) the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: The eyes of (our) understanding being enlightened” (Ephesians 1:17,18).
Finally, we need to “be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets [that is, the Old Testament Scriptures], and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior [that is, the New Testament Scriptures]” (II Peter 3:2). Only thus can Christian fathers today truly honor their fathers and their fathers’ God. HMM
