See, it wasn't until recently (2.7.2011 - Monday), after a second talk with my roommate, that Christianity actually became "real" to me. Call it "newborn Christian", "being saved", "confirmation", or what-have-you, I honestly could care less about the title. It was during that talk with my roommate that I actually felt hopeful about my relationship with Jesus again. For too long, I felt like I'd been in a "desert", simply waiting for something to happen. And I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'd tried nearly everything to "get closer to God", to cut my addictions, etc., but to no avail.
Just a quick bio on my roommate: He was one of my best friends in high school and has been following Jesus for a little over a year and a half now, and had never really been exposed to church and Christianity prior to that. So, seeing how he has literally TRANSFORMED, and simply hearing him talk about Jesus and stuff is really... crazy, for lack of a better word. Everything he says is so raw, from his own experiences, from his own witnessing of the living God, and really challenged the God that I had confined to my own understanding and to what I believed Him able to do. For the sake of brevity, and also because I can't remember our entire conversation, I'll summarize what really pierced my heart: "God IS His Word, Patrick. He really is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. Everything that His Word says, He embodies."No doubt, I'd read and heard that before, but for some reason, it actually clicked when he said it.
For so long, the God I'd created was one created out of need, and one that I would turn to when everything else failed me. I believed that my God "loved" me, even though I never really felt it, that He was faithful, though I didn't know in what ways, and that He just wanted a relationship with me, even though I didn't know what that meant. While some might not understand how my ex-God differs from God the Father, my ex-God was never real to me. It wasn't even really based on Scripture. As I'd mentioned before, I had created and used God to cope with my family problems, when guilt overwhelmed me after I'd committed a sin, my mental instability at times, etc. As far as my ex-God was concerned, he could change, and I wouldn't really have any say in it, since God is ALWAYS right, right?
Now this is where everything fell into place for me. If God is NOT unchanging, and He's only all the good, rainbow stuff that we create in our minds, then that is no god at all. When I actually thought about what my roommate said, and how that challenged my idea of God, I realized that what I'd been living for all this time, aside from myself, was just an idol. However, once God became the literal EMBODIMENT of His Word, not only did I want to read the Bible (I hated reading the Bible), but it was more so that everything that I had read and would read in the future would all be fulfilled by WHO GOD IS.
In Exodus chapters 32 and 33, God gets so angry with the Israelites, but twice Moses rebukes God and holds God accountable to who He is, saying, "Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened" (Exodus 32:12-14). And if that doesn't "wow" you, try Genesis 18:23-25, where, though God has every right and reason to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleads with God saying, "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
As was the case in both instances, both Abraham and Moses find all of their hope, faith, and life in the God who they believed in from the start. And when God does something out-of-the-ordinary, both patriarchs hold God accountable to who He is - He who is unchanging in His love and faithfulness to us. And "BECAUSE God is unchanging in His love for us, He must change" (courtesy of Pastor Woogz). God cannot simply impose His perfect rules and laws on us, saying that He will love us if we obey them; that's not love. On the contrary, our unchanging God, the embodiment and fulfillment of His word, is the same God who, from Genesis to Revelations, is constantly changing so that we might be able to love Him and be loved by Him, culminating in the gospels where He sacrifices His Son so that we might be set free to love and live for Him.
I'll stop there (FINALLY, right?), and just wrap it up with the current reality as a result. I have newfound hope as never before, FACT: God is real, etc. But, as was the issue for most of my life, now what will I do? Will my "hope" simply be a fond memory of when everything clicked in my head, and be left at that?
Jesus, after 20 years on this earth, I have finally come to a realization of the truth. And, before anything, I would like to thank you. Your grace really does break through and reach the hardest of hearts and the worst of sinners. However, I don't want to make my 21st year of life one where I cheapen Your grace as I've done countless times before, and settle for "God loves me the way I am". I don't even know if that's in the Bible (but that could be because I don't know much). But, what I'm trying to say is that I've read, and I've seen Your love to be something that, as opposed to being something that is stagnant, passive, and pansy-like, it is alive and has the ability to transform anyone who accepts it. Nonetheless, as easy as that sounds, and as much as everything makes sense to me, my sinful nature, and 20 years of sin and habits have taken their toll on me. Every part of my worldly body screams "NO!" at the thought of giving up everything to You. But Jesus, as David prayed, "Create in me a pure heart..." and give me grace and strength, for the first time in my entire life - both my 20 years on earth and this new life that I've been given - to actually take action. Amen.
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