I look at my life before Christ and I am struck by the fact that it doesn’t seem like my life. I was born again on Palm Sunday in 1980. I was thirty years old. That has been thirty-eight years ago. When I was first saved, I mourned for all the years I had spent wasting my life trying to do it on my own. I remember praying and asking God to give me as many years to serve Him as I had wasted denying Him. Now, that is just one of the answered prayers in my life.
From the first day I accepted Jesus as my personal Saviour, I have never denied Him and standing on the faith He has given me, I never will. Have I always served Him? Yes. Have I always served Him well? He will be the judge. Have I ever fallen short of what He would have me be? Yes, constantly, consistently, and often consciously. Just as the greatest sinner and the greatest saint, I will stand or fall based on His grace.
In my years before Him, I lived my life into a dead-end of self-seeking, selfishness, and self-loathing. Though I denied He even existed, He reached out to me. Though I took His name in vain He loved me. Though I followed hedonism into every type of sin He washed me as clean as a new born baby, as clean as a new blanket of snow.
Jesus delivered me from alcoholism, from drug addiction, from hatred, from envy, and shame. He gave me a new life complete with a new wife, a son, a healthy mind, a healthy body, and a new name.
What He has done for me, He will do for you. He loves you as much as He has ever loved anyone. Your name is written on His hand and no one, not sin, not hatred, not failure, and not the devil can snatch you out of His hand.
Trust in Him. Reach out to Him and He will reach out to you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Being God He did not grasp at that but instead emptied Himself and became a man. Living a perfect life He was sacrificed for the children of Adam paying the price for every sin and opening the way through faith to become the children of God. For if we will confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead we will be saved.
And salvation is not just pie in the sky. It is not just a far off reward for a life of toil and pain. Salvation is a right now new life, a life where we will never be alone for He will send His Spirit to live within us.
Don’t let anything hold you back when Jesus wants to hold you up.
This is what Easter means to me: life from death and life evermore. An old song sums it up rather well:
Living He Loved Me
Dying He saved me
Buried He carried my sins far away
Rising He justified me
Freed me forever
One day He's coming back Glorious day
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ drrobertowens.com
Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
I look at my life before Christ and I am struck by the fact that it doesn’t seem like my life. I was born again on Palm Sunday in 1980. I was thirty years old. That has been thirty-eight years ago. When I was first saved, I mourned for all the years I had spent wasting my life trying to do it on my own. I remember praying and asking God to give me as many years to serve Him as I had wasted denying Him. Now, that is just one of the answered prayers in my life.
From the first day I accepted Jesus as my personal Saviour, I have never denied Him and standing on the faith He has given me, I never will. Have I always served Him? Yes. Have I always served Him well? He will be the judge. Have I ever fallen short of what He would have me be? Yes, constantly, consistently, and often consciously. Just as the greatest sinner and the greatest saint, I will stand or fall based on His grace.
