Saul set his heart to demonize and persecute Christians. Christ took hold of Him on a lonely desert road outside Damascus, Syria. Without sight for three days, he contemplated this Jesus he so vehemently opposed.

A man named Ananias went to Saul and spoke to him about Jesus. “Why do you delay? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name” (Acts 22:16). Saul became the well-known apostle Paul.

Paul was now a committed follower of Christ. There were new goals and priorities. He was willing to go to jail and even to die for the cause of the Savior. After decades of service to Christ, Paul had the same great goal.

“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).

We can embrace the words and the goal of the apostle Paul. They can set the tone in our lives in the year ahead.