I've had this question on my mind for a long time.
What does this even mean!? I know what most people mean when they ask you
when you came to Christ. I can even give my own story.
I grew up in the church. I remember the times that we didn't go due to sickness very clearly, because they were the exception to our weekly habits. One night, my dad was talking with me before I went to bed and he led me through the sinner's prayer.
That's the first time that I remember 'coming to Jesus.' For me, that
certainly was the beginning of the relationship that I have had with Jesus.
It's a relationship that I've had for most of my life, one that is always
present, and I can always look back upon that moment with gratitude and
thankfulness, as it was the beginning to the best thing that's ever happened
to me.
What gets me thinking is how I lived after this moment. Because it was my
almost default experience of life, I just think of it all as life. I would
describe it as going through the motions, as simply living life. I can
reflect on my life and certainly know that Jesus was wholly present in my
life, but I've always been searching for that rock my life transformation
that is so radically changing.
Knowing the power of Jesus.
When I was younger, third grade to be exact, I had a traumatic experience
with a relative where I was sexually abused. I didn't know ANYTHING about
what was going on, that I should say something to an adult, or how to handle
the trauma and infinite weight of holding this information to myself.
I can clearly remember sitting in my classroom. I was seated facing the
window, with my back to the door. I closed my eyes and prayed:
Jesus, I can't hold on to this anymore. I don't want to think about this all the time or feel the weight of holding onto these memories. Take it away Jesus. Take away this from my mind so that I don't have to think about it anymore.
And Jesus did. I could feel God working in me. Comforting me, taking away
the memory and the weight and pain of the traumatic experience. It was not
that I completely forgot, but that now it did not dominate me and cause me
to live in fear. I was experiencing life with a mind that had been healed by
Christ.
I am completely thankful for Jesus Christ healing me in this way when I was
in third grade, but when I think about how it changed my life outwardly, I'm
left wondering. How did I live my life differently at this point? Well, for
one, I was in third grade, fairly dependent on the schedules that had been
decided for me, and I couldn't do much about that!
How should this change me?
I often think about how life-changing that experience was for me. Because
of the healing of Christ working in my life, I was now able to live a life
that was considerably more free. I was no longer held by the bondage that
kept me weighted down in life.
I had prayed that prayer in which I 'accepted' Jesus into my life. I had
experienced the radical, freeing, healing love of Christ working in my life.
I was learning about the bible and the church. I was in one sense, right
where I should be, but it's more so lately that I'm not satisfied with
having a one-off encounter with the beauty of Jesus Christ in my life. The
Gospel does not call us to claim the name of Jesus and then call ourselves
Christians, the Gospel calls us to live out love.
What does that look like?
A second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth time of knowing Jesus.
I think that we all with continue to have experiences of the risen Jesus
where we will again and again be transformed into the more wholesome image
of love. If sin has obscured the image of God in whose likeness we have been
made, it is the continual meeting of Jesus Christ that makes us whole. It is
Christ who makes us whole and it is Christ who we are to love and obey. We
are to live a new life that is wholly different to the world. We are to be
holy.
To be holy is to be transformed into a follower of Jesus Christ and to be
different, to be set apart for the work of the Gospel, which we are all
called to. As Mildred Bangs Wynkoop writes,
"Everything necessary to a wholesome, strong, positive, Christian life is the meaning and content of holiness. Holiness is love. Love is not an abstract, imputed, unrealistic salvation which saves us in principle but not in fact. Love is precisely the grace of God acting and interacting on and with our essential selves, bringing every element of our beings and personalities under the mastery of the Lord Jesus Christ by the inner presence of the Holy Spirit.
My time in college was another time where I was radically met with the
power of Jesus Christ. This was when I was made aware of many issues that
face brothers and sisters around the world and especially in America. I
was given the opportunity to become aware of all these challenges and then
given the space to dig deep and learn about them, but also to act on them
in the way of the Gospel. This was when I really felt Jesus calling me to
the ministry to the poor.
This is it!
As I've learned more and more about the holiness tradition of the church,
I have truly found what I've been searching for. The teachings of the
holiness movement give the church a way to talk about how Jesus is
changing us here and now.
I now can say that when I am faced with the challenging realities of the
world around us, I can have a transforming encounter with God, where I am
made holier, where I am being brought under the mastery of the Lord Jesus
Christ and I am being taught by Christ how I should respond to these
realities in love.
When I first came to Detroit Mercy, I had one of these encounters with
Jesus Christ. I was in a totally different environment than I had spent
for the majority of my life. I was faced with issues of all varieties and
given the opportunity to engage with these issues firsthand as the body of
Christ. This was another time where I came to Christ. I came to Christ in
light of having a deeper understanding of the issues that plague our world
and I bowed down and gave my life for the engagement of these issues with
the freeing, redeeming love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Finals thoughts
When I discovered the teachings of holiness and understood that my whole
life will continue to be experiences of coming to Christ and being
transformed, freed, and made into a more loving disciple of Jesus, it
allowed me to be more bold in my faith life. I learned that my faith in
Jesus really did wash over all aspects of my life and allow me to live the
Gospel in all parts of my life. It wasn't just something I had to profess
once. I am living focused on the transforming power of Christ in my every
moment, trusting God.
There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears. - Phil 1.6 MSG
As a little extra, here's a short testimony video that I made as an
introduction to the Southern Michigan Conference!