As a young child, age 5ish until 9ish, I rode different Sunday School busses to a few different churches. I distinctly remember praying to become a Christian when I was about 9 years old. Time passed. We moved a few more times. I turned 12 years old, and the bus workers from church found us again. My Grandma, who lived on the other side of town, had given them our address. I was faithful to wake up my 3 siblings every Sunday so that we could ride the bus to church. At the end of every service, our pastor ALWAYS invited anyone in the congregation to come forward and pray to receive Christ as Savior. I went forward during the invitation and the lady asked me if I had ever prayed to be saved before. My answer was yes, so she showed me verses about being sure I was a Christian. This wasn’t enough to make me feel better about myself. I then began to seek out ways to earn more love from God and to feel like I was really a Christian. I increased my church attendance to three times a week. I joined the group of bus workers on Saturday visitation. I noticed that the girls from church always wore dresses. I heard a message that gave me reason to believe that my doing so would make God happy; so I went straight home and threw all my pants away...on trash day. I wanted to make sure that I couldn’t go back on this decision. If my mother was angry about me throwing all my clothes away, she didn’t show it. She also didn’t buy me any dresses; so I was left to wearing the 3 dresses/skirts that I owned.
God provided more clothes. I won a contest at church and the prize was a new Sunday dress. Also, my public school teacher invited me over and gave me a few dresses that she “no longer was able to fit”. I still felt that I needed to do more. One day, at the age of 12, I attended a missions conference at our church. We sang the first song, then a missionary woman gave her testimony. She mentioned that she had just been saved. How was that possible? This woman had grown up in a good Christian home. I knew her family and they were good people. She had attended Bible college AND was now on her way to give her life to tell others about God. If she had not been sure that she was going to heaven; how could I ever be? A heavy fear came over me. I just knew there was going to be an earthquake or something that night and everyone in the building was going to die and I would go straight to hell! I rushed to our bus captain’s wife and pleaded with her to talk with me right then. She politely told me that I would have to wait for a break in the service. Forty-Five LONG minutes later, I went forward and prayed the sinner’s prayer. At this point, I knew all the verses by heart. I had shared them with others. I prayed with the alter worker and when I stood up, I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
This time, I realized that there really was nothing I could do to save myself or to earn the love of God. Jesus really had done everything necessary for me to be accepted.
I continued to go to church as often as possible. I even was given the privilege of attending the Christian school. I continued to wear skirts and dresses daily; but this time it was an exercise in delighting in the fact that I was a young woman who loved God and not because I needed to earn anyone’s love and favor...not even God’s. He had already demonstrated the degree of his love for me - before I had even thought about Him.
What is the point of this post? What do I wish for you to take away from my blog today?
God loves you as you are! GOD LOVES YOU! And, The only thing you must do to earn His favor is to believe the gospel and receive Jesus as Savior.
The Bible tells us in Romans 5:8 that God demonstrated his love for us while we were yet sinners! 1 John 1:8 says that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves...he is talking to believers here! My favorite passage to show others who are interested in salvation is John 3. Nicodemas, a leader of religious Jews, is told by Jesus that if he didn’t forsake his religion in favor of being born into the family of God through the Spirit of God; he could forget seeing God’s kingdom.
Be careful of legalism and legalistic attitudes. Legalism, to me, is following a strict set of rules in order to earn salvation and to prop yourself up above others. Doing things in order to show that you are in God’s favor. It’s forsaking the gospel, grace and a relationship with God for a set of rules or laws that have nothing to do with salvation.
Be careful of borrowing the convictions and beliefs of others who seem to “have it together”. As a young person, I imitated the ladies (good people) who were around me because I respected them and saw the blessings of God on them. Sometimes I knew the “why” (reason) behind the “what”(rule or code of conduct). Sometimes I didn’t. Let me say that imitating good people as a young person never hurt me.
As my relationship with the Lord grew, some of the borrowed convictions became my own because I saw they were good for me. Some of them I shed, as I viewed them as unnecessary for my benefit. I have purposed to be intentional about my standards of dress, actions, dietary practices, and social activities because I want to reflect the God in me as much as possible; not because I want to attract God to me. There’s a difference.
Is any of this making sense? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section. Can any of you identify with my story? Let me know in the comment section. Is there anything I should have mentioned, but didn’t? Let me know in the comment section.
Until Next Time,
No comments:
Post a Comment