Acts‬ ‭9:5

“And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.””

The Apostle Paul is one of the greatest examples of a servant of the LORD Jesus. His life leaves us with no excuse to be complacent, lukewarm, or merely “balanced” Christians who give God only part of their lives. Paul gave everything to LORD Jesus Christ.

Before his conversion, Paul was a highly respected Pharisee and an expert in the Jewish Law. The high priest and the elders trusted him to arrest and persecute the disciples after the LORD Jesus resurrection (Acts 9:1–2). Paul himself testified that he was “a Pharisee” (Philippians 3:5) and that he had advanced in Judaism beyond many of his contemporaries because of his zeal for the traditions of his fathers (Galatians 1:13–14).

As a Pharisee, Paul received rigorous training in the Scriptures from an early age. He studied under the renowned teacher Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), learning and mastering the book of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) as well as the rest of the Jewish scriptures.

Yet when Paul encountered the LORD Jesus on the road to Damascus, he did not recognize Him. This is interesting. Paul had devoted his entire life to studying the Scriptures to become familiar with God and His ways. Imagine from the time he was a young boy, he was trained in the Law and became one of the most respected Pharisees of his day. Yet when the LORD Jesus stood before him on the road to Damascus, Paul did not recognize Him and asked, “Who are You, Lord?” How can this be possible?

Before this verse, it tells us that “a light from heaven shone around him” (Acts 9:3). This phrase from the verse carries deeper revelations because we are talking about a man who had devoted his entire life to studying the Scriptures since he was a young boy. He knew that throughout the Old Testament, light from heaven was associated with God’s presence and glory (Psalm 27:1; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 60:19). Yet even after seeing the heavenly light, he still asked, “Who are You, Lord?”

That should make every one of us pause.

Is it possible to know the Scriptures, grow up in a Christian home, attend church every week, and faithfully follow religious routines without truly knowing Jesus? Paul was living proof that it is. He was raised in a household familiar with and rich in God’s Word. He was passionately devoted to what he believed was serving God, even to the point of persecuting and killing those who opposed what he believed, as he testified in Acts 22. But everything changed when Paul personally encountered the LORD Jesus.

Everyone around us can tell us about God and how He has worked in their lives. But a personal encounter with the LORD Jesus is very important for every Christian, whether you grew up in church or have known the Bible since you were a child. When that encounter happens, what you have believed becomes a living testimony of God’s work in your own life. It is no longer just something you heard from someone else or learned in church, it becomes your own testimony. And once you have truly encountered Jesus, no one can take that away from you.

When Paul asked, “Who are You, Lord?” it was actually a good thing. He didn’t let his religious background, education, or traditions keep him from truly knowing God, unlike many of his fellow Pharisees. They were not interested in knowing Jesus because they believed they already knew God.

The same thing is happening to many Christians today. We can become so consumed with what we have been doctrinated that we stop pursuing God for ourselves. What we have learned can become more important than asking, “Who are You, Lord?” Yet that question reveals the true desire of Paul’s heart. His heart was always after God. That is why, after encountering Jesus, he counted all his achievements as “rubbish or dung” compared to knowing Christ. He said,

“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ” Philippians‬ ‭3:8‬ ‭

And He continued,

“and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,” Philippians‬ ‭3:9-10‬ ‭

Paul’s greatest desire was the surpassing excellence of knowing God through a personal relationship with Him. His desire was to be found in the LORD Jesus Christ and to know Him personally, not through knowledge he gained or religious tradition he accustomed, but because God Himself revealed Himself to him and God Himself declared to him all things he must need to know about God.

Desire God, delight yourself unto Him and ask Him to reveal Himself to you. Jesus never turns away those who genuinely seek Him. In fact, He promised,

“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”” John‬ ‭14:21‬ ‭

Only God can explicitly and accurately reveal who He is to us. No amount of teaching, tradition, or human knowledge can replace God’s own revelation of Himself toward us who believe. Like the LORD Jesus did with Paul, He answered Him, saying, “I am Jesus.”

You know what’s even more ironic? God loves us and He delights in revealing Himself to us, yet many of us have little desire to truly know Him. We spend so much time pursuing other things while the LORD Jesus is left outside the door, continually knocking for us to open it so He can dine with us (Revelations 3:20). Or should I say, He is inviting us into a personal relationship with Him. Yet many of us are too caught up with everything else here in this world that we have little desire to truly know Him.

Here’s the hard part. After the LORD Jesus revealed Himself to Paul, He said, “Whom you are persecuting.” Paul thought that everything he was doing was service to God, but in reality, he was working against God. The words of the LORD Jesus revealed to Paul that any attack against His people and the work God has entrusted to them is an attack against Him. Paul claimed to serve God, yet he had become an enemy of the very God he thought he was devoting his life to.

This is exactly what the LORD Jesus meant when He said:

“He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.”” Luke‬ ‭10:16‬ ‭

Having a personal encounter with the LORD Jesus begins a transformation. The LORD will convict us of our sins. He will dismantle the lies we have believed and expose the deception of the enemy. He will lead us into all truth. The acknowledgment of our sins is the beginning of taking responsibility for our wrongdoing. That is what leads us to repentance, the forgiveness of our sins, and the transformation of our lives, because from that moment on, we no longer live for ourselves or what we have been indoctrinated into. We begin to live for God because we have personally known Him, and He declares to us what needs to be acknowledged, and He will do the rest.

I also want to emphasize this. Those who speak against the disciples of the LORD Jesus ultimately speak against Christ Himself. Those who mock Christians mock the LORD Jesus Christ. Those who humiliate Christians humiliate the LORD Jesus Christ. Those who strike Christians strike the LORD Jesus Christ. Those who reject Christians reject the LORD Jesus Christ. Those who take advantage of Christians take advantage of the LORD Jesus Christ.

So let me ask you this before we go outside of faith: have you ever done any of these things to another believer? The Word of God says, “But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!” (Galatians‬ ‭5:15)‬. We are all one body in Christ!

Then the LORD Jesus revealed to Paul what was impossible for him to accomplish and what would only lead to his own destruction: “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” There are many deeper commentaries and explanations of this phrase that go into great detail. But to keep it simple, Jesus was saying to Paul and to all of us, “You’re only hurting yourself, as we continually resist His will.”

The idea of this phrase is a picture of a stubborn ox being guided by its master with a sharp stick called a goad. Instead of following its master’s direction, the ox keeps kicking against the goad. But every kick doesn’t hurt the master; it only hurts the ox itself. The more it resists, the deeper the pain it causes itself. This is the condition of every sinner who continues to resist God.

Paul’s greatest desire was to know God and to live for Him. But how can we truly know God without first knowing Him personally? How can we say we are serving God when we have never sought His will?

The LORD Jesus Christ reveals Himself in many ways: through His Word, dreams, visions, and even circumstances. But we can only know God deeply through Him, and we can only truly serve God when we obey His leading.

This is the reason why the world is in a state of chaos. Because the world is resisting God and His will. Just think about your own life before you truly encountered the LORD Jesus. Wasn’t it filled with darkness, pain, confusion, suffering, and hopelessness? Resisting God has never brought anyone lasting good. It only leads us further away from the very One who gives life and hope.

Again, resisting God has never brought anyone anything good. Those who reject Jesus, where do they all end up? Hell, an eternal separation from God.

That is what the LORD Jesus meant when He said, “It is hard for everyone of us to kick against the goads.”

Knowing God deeply creates assurance and peace within us. When you know someone is trustworthy with your time, strength, and resources, you won’t hesitate to invest in that person. The same is true with God.

The main point of this verse is whenever we doubt God or struggle to let go of the very things (sins) that are hurting us, just like the ox kicking against the goads, it reveals the condition of our hearts. It reveals that we don’t truly know God as deeply as we think we do.

This is why Paul’s next question was, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” (Acts 9:6). Paul was familiar with God’s Word and knew God’s character through the Scriptures, but what he lacked was a personal encounter with Him that is assurance that no one can refute everything he knew. And now that he had met Him, he clung to Him so tightly that even dying for Christ he called “gain.”

As it is written,

“For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” ‭‭Philippians‬ ‭1:21‬ ‭