When I became a Christian on December 14, 2005 at 44 years old – a son of a Christian mother and father who prayed for me from the time I was in the womb until that cold, snowy day in December 44 years after my birth, and after a lifetime of sinful living, I could NOT WAIT to contact all of the people I hurt over the years to ask them for forgiveness. I couldn’t wait! All I wanted to do was take full responsibility – with NO excuses – for any hurt that I caused in our relationships and ask them to forgive me. I wanted to make things right.
Then I couldn’t wait to share my supernatural experience with anyone who’d listen, regardless if they thought I had lost my mind – it didn’t matter! My eyes were opened in a very spiritual and intimate way, and I wanted to stand on a mountain top and let everyone know how much I loved them and how much their own Creator loved them so much, that He sent His only Son – who lovingly and obediently obliged His Father out of His love for Him and mankind – to become a man – divine in nature – yet objected to every sin the devil could possibly hurl at Him, and then to go on and invent even more just in His honor.
There is a mini-series on television about an angel working with a demon to resolve the oncoming Armageddon – together. An angel and a demon (ostensibly, Arch Angel Michael and Satan) join forces in a sort of warped comedy to work through the inevitable, but it falls flat since righteousness cannot have intercourse with wickedness. When I watched the advertisement for this program, I immediately thought of those 10’s of thousands who drowned in the Flood and the 100’s of thousands who lived in Sodom and Gomorrah and were burned alive where they stood or lay. The Flood and the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah were a type of Armageddon on a smaller scale, yet there was no comedy involved with an angel and a demon joining forces, as if such a thing could ever happen. Hence Hollywood, incited with our own insatiable appetite for fantasy and a craving for silly, stupid stories that have no value other than to titillate, pull at our ever-yielding heartstrings and boost the sales of popcorn and boxes of Goobers and Julyfruits at the concession counters, continues to churn out one rancid movie after another with no moral fiber or responsibility to help point young people in a positive direction.
But I digress… What I want to say in this blog, is that we have no power of ourselves to put a stop to sin. We cannot convert ourselves. In fact, we are just like St. Paul before his conversion on the Damascus road, when he was a murderer of Christians of the early Church and “drank sin like water”. Sinning for St. Paul was as insignificant as a drinking a tall cool glass of water. No big deal. This is how I thought of sin until my own conversion in the winter of 2005. Is this how you think of sin? If so, your poor soul. If only you were seeking Christ as He is seeking you!
When I became a Christian, the first thought that came to me loud and clear was that I was FREE! Since Christ said, “It is Finished” on that bloody cross, I realized that He had done it all, where no man or woman could – especially me. He was saying, “Brett, I understand you will have to deal with your sinful nature for the rest of your life, but take heart, and remember – I have done it all for you. I have taken all of your sin – past, present and future – and I have buried all of it into the deepest sea – I’ve even put a mist over it so that I cannot even see it – all your sins are as far away from Me as the east is from the west. You can do NOTHING to redeem yourself, since only I am capable of doing it all. I have taken your place on that cross that you so well deserve so that you can be free from both sin and death. Do you believe Me?”
“Do you?”
This is the essence of the Gospel. When we become a Christian, did you know that the Father can only see His Son’s smiling, loving face across our own? It’s like the Passover, when the Angel of Death ‘passed over’ the doors splattered in the blood of lambs to protect the first-born sons inside those homes. The Father see’s the sacrificial blood of His one and only Son sprinkled across our filthy, sinful faces and passes over our sins – past, present and future – because all He can see is that pure, sparkling blood that His son shed on our behalf so that we, like Christ, are sons and daughters of God and accepted into eternal glory and unspeakable bliss as his true sons and daughters.
So, what are you waiting for? All you need to do is ask Christ into your heart. Ask Him to cleanse you and forgive all of your past sins. He can’t wait to forgive and cleanse you! He yearns to be your Brother, your Friend and Lord. Who wouldn’t want a King when all He want to do is serve you and make you stand on top of His shoulders as a true heir to His Kingdom? All He wants to do is give, give, give. C’mon, get in on some of this!