So today marks twelve years that I have been a born-again Christ follower. I remember the night like it was yesterday. It was in Gym E of Hebron Baptist Church in Dacula, Georgia and it was the kick-off night to the yearly Disciple-Now Weekend where youth from the church would divide into groups and spend the weekend at a church member's home to be lead in devotions from college students who loved the Lord and to have fun and serve the community also. I walked into that gym a lost and helpless kid without a Savior and walked out of that room with a new heart and a new Lord. Although I had walked an aisle at the age of nine, it was pretty clear to me and probably all genuine believers that I had missed something crucial: conversion. I had prayed a prayer and been dunked in some water and even fooled family into believing that my life was pretty clean. The only problem was I didn't know Jesus. I knew about Jesus, but I didn't know him personally because I had never been born again. But in March of 2002, the preacher stood up to preach in that gym (no idea who he was) to those kids and God lifted the veil that had been draped over my eyes all my life. God didn't just send somebody to preach to me. I had heard good and biblical preaching all my life. God himself was in that gym that night pursuing me himself. Unbeknownst to the preacher, God was using his words like daggers to my self-righteousness and self-centeredness. He was himself dealing with my hard-heartedness and rebelliousness. That night God not only gave me the chance to decide for Christ, but he regenerated my dead heart to new life and shined the light of the gospel into my darkened soul like letting sunlight in a dark room. I finally saw the glorious Christ in all of his majesty, there hanging on that cross with his arms outstretched, bearing all my sin and shame, and atoning for it all, while also giving me his own righteousness. I saw the awesome and holy God of all creation and my sins looked less like mistakes or accidents and more like unbelievable acts of rebellion and treason against the King of kings and Lord of lords.
I knew that I had two options: walk out that gym door the same spiritually dead sinner or walk out a changed man with a purpose and an overwhelming passion for Christ. When God opens your heart to believe in the gospel in a way like that, you'd be a fool to think there was even an option there. The second the gospel was unveiled before me in all of its glittering beauty, my heart leapt for Christ…and I leapt from my seat to tell a pastor I needed Jesus. There were no lights and dramatic music. There was no announcement that a soul had been plucked from the verge of Hell. There was nobody who even noticed the quiet kid walk through the mass of people to see the pastor at the front. To be totally honest, in all those people there that night I don't have a single witness who would even remember me coming that night. But I remember like it happened last night. My God had shown up for me. He had taken all the sin and sadness and depression and hard-heartedness and cleanliness and religiosity away and he had given me all the righteousness and holiness and hope and joy and love and grace and mercy and life that I had never experienced before. How do I know? There was a change that has been constant these twelve years that had never existed all the years before. That change was that I loved him, loved his people, loved the world…I also began hating sin, hating lostness, and hating all the evil I once loved. I remember my sister asking me one day after this, "Why are you all the sudden reading your Bible so much?" I had been changed. Let me clarify what did not happen to me that night: I did not turn over a new leaf, get a new lease on life, swap addictions, clean things up for myself, or start moving in the right direction. No, what I experienced was regeneration, justification, salvation, conversion, illumination, and life everlasting breaking in on my life. The same God who spoke into existence that which did not previously exist when he made all things had spoken into existence spiritual life that did not previously exist.
"Long my imprisoned spirit lay
fast bound in sin and nature's night,
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke the dungeon flamed with light.
My chains fell off, my heart was free.
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
Amazing love, how can it be that Thou my God would die for me?"
My change was real and I know it was real because I'm still changed today. Would you describe your Christianity like this? Have you had an encounter with the Risen Christ? Have you been changed from the inside? If not, believe on Christ today. He may be pursuing you like he did me. Turn to Him in faith.
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." -2 Corinthians 5:17
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