More like my Father by meeting His Son

I would almost start by saying that my story is not really that special. But then I stop. A meeting with Jesus that isn’t special, isn’t that impossible?

Like so many, I was raised in a Christian home. I am so grateful to my parents for the special way in which they gave me clear limits and still allowed me so much freedom. I have never felt boxed up in the little Christian world. The opposite, in fact. It has been the place where I have found myself and now, I see it was not really me but mostly God through me.

I could tell you about dozens of camps, weekends and youth nights that I went too. And undoubtedly, they all helped build me into the person I am right now and the ideas (or theology, if you will) I have right now. On one of those, I raised my hands and prayed the prayer to let Jesus into my heart.

A year ago, this would have been my story. Maybe I could also have told you about my passion for God. Since I’ve been a teenager, I have never been able to sit still. I always wanted to go out with other Christians and change the world. That’s what my heart was beating for, and is beating for still!

We cannot ever put enough emphasis on the worth of His sacrifice.

But then God intervened in my life. For eighteen years, there has never been a moment that I wanted to leave my faith behind. God was always a reality in my life and every choice that I made, every step I made, was directed by this reality. Still, I missed the essence… It was in one moment in our bible study that I was so grasped by how much it cost Jesus to die on the cross. We can’t ever put enough emphasis on that.

I had been living together with God for eighteen years without ever realizing how great my need for His sacrifice was. “I’m not really such a bad person. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I only listen to Christian music. Which sin does Jesus have to save me from?” Of course I didn’t think I was perfect, but I did not see what a lousy job I was doing on my own, and that I needed Jesus’ saving sacrifice so badly!

When all is said and done, we are all just a bunch of sinners!

On that moment I was fixed on the one hand by my dreadfully sinful self, and on the other hand by His wonderful and unending grace. From one moment my perspective on the world had been changed. Instead of looking down at Christians who made wrong choices, I was moved for them and wanted to ask them how they were doing.

I dwelt on the fact that in the end, all of us are sinners. And all of us have a hopeless need for Jesus’ sacrifice. I hope we may challenge each other to chose the right way and not look down on each other because someone else chooses a wrong path.?We’re in this together and together we can shine His love around us!

This post is part of my 31 days series ‘More like My Father’.