My Personal Story
Many times in our lives we do things without knowing why; for instance celebrating national holidays such as The 4th of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Most of us know what each of the holidays mean but when the celebration occurs we seldom incorporate the true meaning into the holiday. Generally speaking many of the holidays are a time of food, fun, friends and family. That is all wonderful but really why are these national holidays? I mean they must be very important, important enough that in many situations companies close down for the day and kids are let out of school. I know when I ask many people what Christmas meant to them they say Christmas is the birth of Jesus Christ. When I ask how they celebrate the birth of Jesus many look at me dumb founded. They sit in silence. It usually is an awkward moment so I move on to another topic without any further probing. As a young child my family celebrated Christmas by giving and receiving gifts but we never celebrated Jesus birthday.
These pages are my journey to understand Christmas. If you are interested in my story please read on.
As I was saying Christmas is the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ who is considered the Son of God, and the Savior of all people. Not to be sacrilegious but my initial thoughts were “so what” another baby was born. What made this baby any more important than anyone else? When I think back to my early childhood memories of Christmas the first thoughts that come to my mind is the scent of fresh cut Christmas trees, Santa Claus, Christmas lights, Christmas cards across the fireplace mantle, Rudolph’s red nose, and presents; not a “a manger scene.”
Though my sisters, brother, and I attended church regularly and I watched the traditional nativity play performed each year, I really did not understand what the birth of Jesus meant. I mean the story included donkeys, cows, sheep, shepherds, wisemen, a couple of teenagers (Mary and Joseph), and a baby. I grew up in the suburb not a farm so I did not know anything about these animals. As far as wisemen and shepherd are concerned I never knew any of these people and I doubt anyone else knew of them. As for babies I understood they were born in a hospital not a barn. The story seemed trapped in time. I did not understand how it related to me. Even after so many times watching the play and hearing the story read from the Bible I still did not understand what Christmas meant. In so many ways I did not relate.
In trying to make sense out of “Christmas” I thought back to my childhood memories of what my pastor and Sunday school teachers taught. They said Jesus was born to “save” me because I was a bad person. They told me if I “got saved” when I died I would go to heaven. My pastor said in order to be “saved” I needed to ask God for forgiveness, turn my life over to God and “STOP sinning.” The pastor and teachers said if I did not get saved then I would go to “Hell” when I died. I was terrified. As any young child I wanted to be accepted, to feel safe, and to matter to someone. I did not want to go to hell. I wanted to be “saved.” Being terrified and wanting to please God I did what the pastor said. I fell to the floor on my knees and fumbled through the words. I asked God for forgiveness, I told him I did not want to continue down the same path, that I wanted to change and asked Him to change me.
When I was finished talking (praying) to God I got up off of the floor but I did not feel any different. I wondered what went wrong. I thought I was supposed to feel happy and peaceful. I thought maybe I did not say the right words or maybe I was so broken that God could never forgive me. I did not know what to do. I thought maybe there was something that I had done wrong that I forgot to ask for forgiveness. I tried to become more aware of my sin (wrong doings) so that when a sin came to my mind I could ask God for forgiveness but even when I did this I did not feel any more forgiven. I continued to think something was wrong with me. I desperately wanted to change. I watched other Christians that I admired and thought were happy and I said to myself if I do what they are doing then I will be happy. I began emulating their actions. I started attending church three times a week instead of once. I tried to give more, to be a “better” person, and I tried to“pray” more. I would like to say it helped but in reality I didn’t feel any different. In fact it seemed the more I tried the worse I felt. With a critical eye I never felt perfect enough and I continued to feel worse about myself. All I could think was God said he would save me and now I had to somehow stop doing wrong. I kept trying harder and harder and the harder I tried the more anxiety and depression I felt.
I spent many years in a black pit. At times I became so depressed I wondered if there was a reason to live. I kept trying but I never felt forgiven and at rest with God and myself. Finally I got to the point to where I said “I can’t be good enough” but even after saying that I did not find any peace, I felt alone and defeated.
During this process I questioned my beliefs. I asked myself what if there isn’t a God. The problem with this thought was every time I went outside and saw the moon and sun and thought of the sheer vastness of the galaxies and solar systems (to which I cannot comprehend) the only logical conclusion I could resolve with myself was there must be a God. As I pondered these concepts other thoughts came to mind and I thought of how all of the planets work together so perfectly. Out of this I saw divine intervention. The thought that someone had to create everything of nothing reinforced the concept that there must be a God. I thought if God made everything that was good he must have also created me. But if God created me why was it that I was so broken. I mean as a child no one ever had to teach me to do wrong; I was selfish and self-absorbed. My parents, teachers, and Sunday school teachers had to teach me to do right. Even with much teaching choosing to do wrong still came easy and doing right was difficult especially when my self interests were involved. All I know is I wanted peace; I wanted the heavy weight lifted off of my shoulders. I wanted forgiveness; I wanted to feel safe though I did not know how to get there.
As a young adult my girlfriend invited me to her church. The pastor’s teaching was radically different than what I had been taught as a child. Pastor Glen said there isn’t anything I could do to be “saved.” Inside my head I screamed. I thought he was out of his mind and did not live in the real world. I gritted my teeth and thought there is a cost for everything and no one has ever given me anything without strings being attached! Week by week and year after year Pastor Glen taught God loves you just because he does. He said it does not matter if you are a good or bad person; God loves you where you are at.
One Sunday morning Pastor Glen said the difference between Christianity and all other world religions is that other religions say I must do something (perform) to get God’s acceptance. In Christianity God does everything for me to be accepted by Him. Pastor Glen said all of our good works do not resolve the sin that we have done in our lives. He said trying to be moral and do what is right would not save me. Pastor Glen read the Bible verse from the book of Ephesians Chapter 2 verses 8-10: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Pastor Glen said as you can see you can’t do anything to save you. If you could save you, you might boast about it. Pastor said it is because of unmerited favor (grace) by God, a gift from God and it comes from me believing that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. Once I trust God then He will begin to work through me to do His will in everyday life. I thought about the scripture off and on for years and for a few moments in time I too had some level of peace “cognitively” knowing that I did not have to perform anymore. At some level of thinking I understood that I could trust God to save me and I could relax knowing He would lovingly change my behavior to be more like His.
Unfortunately this sense of peace did not last long though because my broken feelings crept back into my mind and before I knew it I was back to trying to perform to be accepted. The ironic thing about it was even if there was a standard of perfection that I could have obtained (and there was not) in my broken mind I would have found some fault. In my world all I knew was rules, regulations, rejection and fear. For years my feelings said I had to be perfect and nothing else would be acceptable. That is truly all that I knew. Growing up in our home acceptance and love was based on performance. I never knew anyone that liked me just because they did. As a child whether in school, church, or playing sports value depended on performance. And as an adult everything that has to do with what the world calls “success” has been related to performance.
Embracing salvation based on unmerited favor continued to be a struggle at best. Throughout my life rarely have I met a person where grace permeates their character. I have known many Christians who said they are saved by faith yet when I watched their daily behavior they were caught up in being obsessed with rules, regulations, and constant focusing only on right and wrong and trying to be perfect. It’s also an important to say I didn’t see any real joy in their life. Their behavior constantly reaffirmed what my feelings where telling me. The term “grace” for the most part in my world was an ideal concept not a reality. As a result my feelings continued to scream performance is the key to acceptance.
In struggling with the concept of “grace” (unmerited favor) I came to an understanding of an underlying problem I had with God. Either I did not know God’s character or I did not believe what the Bible said about who He is. In order to understand and embrace grace I read the book The Grace Awakening: Believing in Grace Is One Thing Living It is Another. In his book Charles Swindoll states “by simply believing in Jesus Christ I can have eternal life with God, my sins are forgiven, my destiny is secure in heaven, and much more without working (trying to be perfect). Chuck said it is all offered by divine grace (unmerited favor). He stated Jesus came and ministered in a new and different way- He alone, full of grace (unmerited favor) and full of truth introduced a revolutionary, different way of life. Jesus showed grace by extending kindness to others who don’t didn’t deserve it and could never earn it. Jesus favor to others was simply out of the goodness of his heart. Charles gave an example of grace. He said “Let’s imagine you have a six year old son whom you love dearly. Tragically, one day you discover your son was horribly murdered. After a lengthy search the investigators of the crime find the killer. You have a choice. If you used every means in your power to kill the murderer for his crime, that would be called vengeance. If, however, if your content to sit back and let the legal authorities take over and execute on him what is proper- a fair trial, a plea of guilty, capital punishment- that is justice. But if you should plead for the pardon of the murderer, forgive him completely, invite him into your home, and adopt him as your own son that is grace.”
Charles stated “Now do you see why grace is so hard to grasp and to accept? Very few people (if any) reading this book would happily and readily do that. But God does it every day. He takes the guilty, believing sinner who says, “I am lost, unworthy, guilty as charged, and undeserving of forgiveness,” and extends the gift of eternal life because of Christ’s death on the cross satisfied His demands against sin, namely death. And God sees the guilty sinner who comes by faith alone as righteous as His own Son. In fact, He even invites us to come home with Him as He adopts us into His forever family. Instead of treating us with vengeance or executing justice, God extends grace.”
I would like to be able to say to you after reading the book all was well in my mind. The truth was my mind was still cloudy just not as much as before. I still had questions and I continued to ask the Lord to set me free to be at peace with Him and myself. I continued to read the book Grace Awakening and the book of Romans. I felt a flicker of hope as I obtained a glimmer of understanding. I learned no one is declared righteous in God’s sight by observing the law (trying to be perfect). It (the law which is righteous) makes me conscious of my sin (Romans 3:20) because I cannot always keep it. In the Old Testament Abraham was not justified by his works (being perfect enough), He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness (Romans 4:5). I
learned that the words“credited to him” were not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness- for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
Paul continued in the letter that he wrote to the church at Romans and said He (referring to Jesus) was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace to which we now stand (Romans 4:23-5:2). Verse 5:1 says we, being justified by faith, not works (trying to be perfect) gets the one thing I have longed for- peace with God. Not through anything that I have done or anything I can do to try to be perfect. The verse says I have been justified by faith. It is through Jesus Christ my Lord who paid the absolute, final payment for sin when He died in our place at the Cross. Sin against God required the payment of death. And Jesus Christ, the perfect substitute, made the ultimate, once and for all payment on my behalf. It cost Him His life. As a result, God gives the free gift of salvation to all who believe in His Son.
Having read over this information many times I still struggled with “being justified by faith alone.” Again in his book “The Grace Awakening by Charles Swindoll he deals with the concept of justification. Charles states “justification is the sovereign act of God whereby He declares righteous the believing sinner while still in his sinning state. It does not mean the believing sinner stops sinning. It does not even mean the believing sinner is made righteous in the sense of being made perpetually perfect. The sinner is declared righteous. God sovereignly bestows the gift of eternal life on the sinner at the moment he believes and thereby declares him righteous while the sinner still lives a life marked by periodic sinfulness. He has not joined a church, he has not been baptized, he hasn’t promised to live a sacrificial, spotless, pure life. He has simply taken the gift of eternal life. He has changed his mind toward Christ (repentance) and accepted the free gift of God apart from works. Period. Transaction completed. By grace, through faith alone, God declares the sinner righteous (justification), and from that moment on the justified sinner begins a process of growth toward maturity. Day by day, bit by bit, he learns what it means to live a life that honors Christ. But immediately? No way.”
Charles clarifies that “justification does not mean Just as if I never sinned. Justification means even though I still sin periodically and have found myself unable to stop sinning on a permanent basis, God declared me righteous when I believed. And because I will continue to sin from time to time, I find all the more reason to be grateful for grace. As a sinner I deserve vengeance. As a
sinner I am afraid of justice. And so, as a sinner, my only true hope for survival is grace. In its purest earthly form it makes no sense.”
When I thought of God’s grace I read the first letter from Paul to the Church at Corinth chapter 13 verses 4-8 and thought of God’s character. It states “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
I thought about these words and how they relate to God’s character. God can give grace (unmerited favor) because of who He is. He does not keep a record of wrongs. I thought about it for a while longer and realized what makes no earthly sense is “who God is.” The essence of God’s grace was performed perfectly in sending His Son. It is the day the world calls Christmas.
In the book The Grace Awakening Charles Swindoll defines Christmas perfectly in a poem that was given to him. It states: “If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. But our greatest need was forgiveness, So God sent us a Savior.”
For so many years I didn’t understand what Christmas Day was. Now I do. By God sending His Son on Christmas Day (being born) and later dying on the cross for each person’s sin’s and raising from the dead each of us now have the opportunity to have a personal relationship with God. Today I am learning to rest in God. No longer am I working to attempt to obtain His acceptance. I am a sinner saved by unmerited favor and God works through me to do His will each day of my life.
To those of you who have taken the time to read my personal story I want to say thanks. If you have any questions or comments don’t hesitate to send me an email at [email protected]
If you would like to know more of How to become a Christian please click the Tab “How to become a Christian.”
These pages are my journey to understand Christmas. If you are interested in my story please read on.
As I was saying Christmas is the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ who is considered the Son of God, and the Savior of all people. Not to be sacrilegious but my initial thoughts were “so what” another baby was born. What made this baby any more important than anyone else? When I think back to my early childhood memories of Christmas the first thoughts that come to my mind is the scent of fresh cut Christmas trees, Santa Claus, Christmas lights, Christmas cards across the fireplace mantle, Rudolph’s red nose, and presents; not a “a manger scene.”
Though my sisters, brother, and I attended church regularly and I watched the traditional nativity play performed each year, I really did not understand what the birth of Jesus meant. I mean the story included donkeys, cows, sheep, shepherds, wisemen, a couple of teenagers (Mary and Joseph), and a baby. I grew up in the suburb not a farm so I did not know anything about these animals. As far as wisemen and shepherd are concerned I never knew any of these people and I doubt anyone else knew of them. As for babies I understood they were born in a hospital not a barn. The story seemed trapped in time. I did not understand how it related to me. Even after so many times watching the play and hearing the story read from the Bible I still did not understand what Christmas meant. In so many ways I did not relate.
In trying to make sense out of “Christmas” I thought back to my childhood memories of what my pastor and Sunday school teachers taught. They said Jesus was born to “save” me because I was a bad person. They told me if I “got saved” when I died I would go to heaven. My pastor said in order to be “saved” I needed to ask God for forgiveness, turn my life over to God and “STOP sinning.” The pastor and teachers said if I did not get saved then I would go to “Hell” when I died. I was terrified. As any young child I wanted to be accepted, to feel safe, and to matter to someone. I did not want to go to hell. I wanted to be “saved.” Being terrified and wanting to please God I did what the pastor said. I fell to the floor on my knees and fumbled through the words. I asked God for forgiveness, I told him I did not want to continue down the same path, that I wanted to change and asked Him to change me.
When I was finished talking (praying) to God I got up off of the floor but I did not feel any different. I wondered what went wrong. I thought I was supposed to feel happy and peaceful. I thought maybe I did not say the right words or maybe I was so broken that God could never forgive me. I did not know what to do. I thought maybe there was something that I had done wrong that I forgot to ask for forgiveness. I tried to become more aware of my sin (wrong doings) so that when a sin came to my mind I could ask God for forgiveness but even when I did this I did not feel any more forgiven. I continued to think something was wrong with me. I desperately wanted to change. I watched other Christians that I admired and thought were happy and I said to myself if I do what they are doing then I will be happy. I began emulating their actions. I started attending church three times a week instead of once. I tried to give more, to be a “better” person, and I tried to“pray” more. I would like to say it helped but in reality I didn’t feel any different. In fact it seemed the more I tried the worse I felt. With a critical eye I never felt perfect enough and I continued to feel worse about myself. All I could think was God said he would save me and now I had to somehow stop doing wrong. I kept trying harder and harder and the harder I tried the more anxiety and depression I felt.
I spent many years in a black pit. At times I became so depressed I wondered if there was a reason to live. I kept trying but I never felt forgiven and at rest with God and myself. Finally I got to the point to where I said “I can’t be good enough” but even after saying that I did not find any peace, I felt alone and defeated.
During this process I questioned my beliefs. I asked myself what if there isn’t a God. The problem with this thought was every time I went outside and saw the moon and sun and thought of the sheer vastness of the galaxies and solar systems (to which I cannot comprehend) the only logical conclusion I could resolve with myself was there must be a God. As I pondered these concepts other thoughts came to mind and I thought of how all of the planets work together so perfectly. Out of this I saw divine intervention. The thought that someone had to create everything of nothing reinforced the concept that there must be a God. I thought if God made everything that was good he must have also created me. But if God created me why was it that I was so broken. I mean as a child no one ever had to teach me to do wrong; I was selfish and self-absorbed. My parents, teachers, and Sunday school teachers had to teach me to do right. Even with much teaching choosing to do wrong still came easy and doing right was difficult especially when my self interests were involved. All I know is I wanted peace; I wanted the heavy weight lifted off of my shoulders. I wanted forgiveness; I wanted to feel safe though I did not know how to get there.
As a young adult my girlfriend invited me to her church. The pastor’s teaching was radically different than what I had been taught as a child. Pastor Glen said there isn’t anything I could do to be “saved.” Inside my head I screamed. I thought he was out of his mind and did not live in the real world. I gritted my teeth and thought there is a cost for everything and no one has ever given me anything without strings being attached! Week by week and year after year Pastor Glen taught God loves you just because he does. He said it does not matter if you are a good or bad person; God loves you where you are at.
One Sunday morning Pastor Glen said the difference between Christianity and all other world religions is that other religions say I must do something (perform) to get God’s acceptance. In Christianity God does everything for me to be accepted by Him. Pastor Glen said all of our good works do not resolve the sin that we have done in our lives. He said trying to be moral and do what is right would not save me. Pastor Glen read the Bible verse from the book of Ephesians Chapter 2 verses 8-10: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Pastor Glen said as you can see you can’t do anything to save you. If you could save you, you might boast about it. Pastor said it is because of unmerited favor (grace) by God, a gift from God and it comes from me believing that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. Once I trust God then He will begin to work through me to do His will in everyday life. I thought about the scripture off and on for years and for a few moments in time I too had some level of peace “cognitively” knowing that I did not have to perform anymore. At some level of thinking I understood that I could trust God to save me and I could relax knowing He would lovingly change my behavior to be more like His.
Unfortunately this sense of peace did not last long though because my broken feelings crept back into my mind and before I knew it I was back to trying to perform to be accepted. The ironic thing about it was even if there was a standard of perfection that I could have obtained (and there was not) in my broken mind I would have found some fault. In my world all I knew was rules, regulations, rejection and fear. For years my feelings said I had to be perfect and nothing else would be acceptable. That is truly all that I knew. Growing up in our home acceptance and love was based on performance. I never knew anyone that liked me just because they did. As a child whether in school, church, or playing sports value depended on performance. And as an adult everything that has to do with what the world calls “success” has been related to performance.
Embracing salvation based on unmerited favor continued to be a struggle at best. Throughout my life rarely have I met a person where grace permeates their character. I have known many Christians who said they are saved by faith yet when I watched their daily behavior they were caught up in being obsessed with rules, regulations, and constant focusing only on right and wrong and trying to be perfect. It’s also an important to say I didn’t see any real joy in their life. Their behavior constantly reaffirmed what my feelings where telling me. The term “grace” for the most part in my world was an ideal concept not a reality. As a result my feelings continued to scream performance is the key to acceptance.
In struggling with the concept of “grace” (unmerited favor) I came to an understanding of an underlying problem I had with God. Either I did not know God’s character or I did not believe what the Bible said about who He is. In order to understand and embrace grace I read the book The Grace Awakening: Believing in Grace Is One Thing Living It is Another. In his book Charles Swindoll states “by simply believing in Jesus Christ I can have eternal life with God, my sins are forgiven, my destiny is secure in heaven, and much more without working (trying to be perfect). Chuck said it is all offered by divine grace (unmerited favor). He stated Jesus came and ministered in a new and different way- He alone, full of grace (unmerited favor) and full of truth introduced a revolutionary, different way of life. Jesus showed grace by extending kindness to others who don’t didn’t deserve it and could never earn it. Jesus favor to others was simply out of the goodness of his heart. Charles gave an example of grace. He said “Let’s imagine you have a six year old son whom you love dearly. Tragically, one day you discover your son was horribly murdered. After a lengthy search the investigators of the crime find the killer. You have a choice. If you used every means in your power to kill the murderer for his crime, that would be called vengeance. If, however, if your content to sit back and let the legal authorities take over and execute on him what is proper- a fair trial, a plea of guilty, capital punishment- that is justice. But if you should plead for the pardon of the murderer, forgive him completely, invite him into your home, and adopt him as your own son that is grace.”
Charles stated “Now do you see why grace is so hard to grasp and to accept? Very few people (if any) reading this book would happily and readily do that. But God does it every day. He takes the guilty, believing sinner who says, “I am lost, unworthy, guilty as charged, and undeserving of forgiveness,” and extends the gift of eternal life because of Christ’s death on the cross satisfied His demands against sin, namely death. And God sees the guilty sinner who comes by faith alone as righteous as His own Son. In fact, He even invites us to come home with Him as He adopts us into His forever family. Instead of treating us with vengeance or executing justice, God extends grace.”
I would like to be able to say to you after reading the book all was well in my mind. The truth was my mind was still cloudy just not as much as before. I still had questions and I continued to ask the Lord to set me free to be at peace with Him and myself. I continued to read the book Grace Awakening and the book of Romans. I felt a flicker of hope as I obtained a glimmer of understanding. I learned no one is declared righteous in God’s sight by observing the law (trying to be perfect). It (the law which is righteous) makes me conscious of my sin (Romans 3:20) because I cannot always keep it. In the Old Testament Abraham was not justified by his works (being perfect enough), He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness (Romans 4:5). I
learned that the words“credited to him” were not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness- for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
Paul continued in the letter that he wrote to the church at Romans and said He (referring to Jesus) was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace to which we now stand (Romans 4:23-5:2). Verse 5:1 says we, being justified by faith, not works (trying to be perfect) gets the one thing I have longed for- peace with God. Not through anything that I have done or anything I can do to try to be perfect. The verse says I have been justified by faith. It is through Jesus Christ my Lord who paid the absolute, final payment for sin when He died in our place at the Cross. Sin against God required the payment of death. And Jesus Christ, the perfect substitute, made the ultimate, once and for all payment on my behalf. It cost Him His life. As a result, God gives the free gift of salvation to all who believe in His Son.
Having read over this information many times I still struggled with “being justified by faith alone.” Again in his book “The Grace Awakening by Charles Swindoll he deals with the concept of justification. Charles states “justification is the sovereign act of God whereby He declares righteous the believing sinner while still in his sinning state. It does not mean the believing sinner stops sinning. It does not even mean the believing sinner is made righteous in the sense of being made perpetually perfect. The sinner is declared righteous. God sovereignly bestows the gift of eternal life on the sinner at the moment he believes and thereby declares him righteous while the sinner still lives a life marked by periodic sinfulness. He has not joined a church, he has not been baptized, he hasn’t promised to live a sacrificial, spotless, pure life. He has simply taken the gift of eternal life. He has changed his mind toward Christ (repentance) and accepted the free gift of God apart from works. Period. Transaction completed. By grace, through faith alone, God declares the sinner righteous (justification), and from that moment on the justified sinner begins a process of growth toward maturity. Day by day, bit by bit, he learns what it means to live a life that honors Christ. But immediately? No way.”
Charles clarifies that “justification does not mean Just as if I never sinned. Justification means even though I still sin periodically and have found myself unable to stop sinning on a permanent basis, God declared me righteous when I believed. And because I will continue to sin from time to time, I find all the more reason to be grateful for grace. As a sinner I deserve vengeance. As a
sinner I am afraid of justice. And so, as a sinner, my only true hope for survival is grace. In its purest earthly form it makes no sense.”
When I thought of God’s grace I read the first letter from Paul to the Church at Corinth chapter 13 verses 4-8 and thought of God’s character. It states “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
I thought about these words and how they relate to God’s character. God can give grace (unmerited favor) because of who He is. He does not keep a record of wrongs. I thought about it for a while longer and realized what makes no earthly sense is “who God is.” The essence of God’s grace was performed perfectly in sending His Son. It is the day the world calls Christmas.
In the book The Grace Awakening Charles Swindoll defines Christmas perfectly in a poem that was given to him. It states: “If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. But our greatest need was forgiveness, So God sent us a Savior.”
For so many years I didn’t understand what Christmas Day was. Now I do. By God sending His Son on Christmas Day (being born) and later dying on the cross for each person’s sin’s and raising from the dead each of us now have the opportunity to have a personal relationship with God. Today I am learning to rest in God. No longer am I working to attempt to obtain His acceptance. I am a sinner saved by unmerited favor and God works through me to do His will each day of my life.
To those of you who have taken the time to read my personal story I want to say thanks. If you have any questions or comments don’t hesitate to send me an email at [email protected]
If you would like to know more of How to become a Christian please click the Tab “How to become a Christian.”