Good Morning, Meetpastordan Readers…Today’s blog will be a bit of departure from my usual format. This will be more of a personal testimony, and here’s how that developed. I was on my pre-dawn walk with Glenn and Clifford, and feeling a bit “out of juice” as I contemplated this morning’s blog, when all of a sudden – it was as if I woke up a second time! I couldn’t help but laugh out loud, because as much as I have written about turning to the Holy Spirit as our source of wisdom, strength, courage, patience, insight, etc., here I was totally wrapped-up in ME, such as…I gotta come up with the title, the subject, the perspective, etc. I wish I could honestly say this was a rare occasion, but I’m still prone to look inside myself first for answers. All I can say in my defense is…I too am in the process of sanctification that I often write about, and while I’m getting better, I ain’t there yet!” But the good news is, once I came to my senses and turned to my source of strength, I began to get clarity for today’s posting.
More than once I have made the comment that John 8:32 perfectly describes my story; it encapsulates my transformation from a proud atheist to a believer: “Jesus told his disciples, ‘If you follow my teachings, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Back in my BS period (before sobriety and before salvation), I thought I had all the answers. I believed I was quite self-sufficient and on my way to bigger and better things, which was of course, evaluated by worldly standards. But unfortunately the Gospel of Presgrave proved not to be as solvent as I had thought, and I ended up in a very dark place. But the flip side of that coin is…the teachings of Jesus Christ (the Truth) did, as promised, set me free.
So as I was drawn to the above Scripture this morning, I also felt led to the words I got a few weeks ago when I was trying to add lyrics to a tune I have been humming. (welcome to my dog-walking creativity) 🙂 I wanted to add words to that tune that would express the joy I feel about being in Christ, so here is what is most likely verse one.
“Jesus, you are my Savior…Jesus, you are my Lord There is none other like you…you are the living Word You came to pay my ransom…you came to set me free Your blood gave me new life…I’m a transformed Me! (likely followed by a second and third verse and a coda)
Prior to salvation, I proudly rejected references to Christianity and the church because I saw hypocrisy in both. But all of that changed when I accepted an invitation from a friend, who was also in my recovery program, to be his guest at Grace Church St. Louis. I was wrapping up my nearly three year exploration of Eastern and New Age religions when he caught me at a weak moment. He told me he found something at Grace that he hadn’t found in other churches, and that got my attention. Since I still hadn’t found what I had hoped to find in my search for answers, I acquiesced.
That morning changed my life. For the first time I heard the Gospel of Grace presented in a clear, concise, yet powerful way, and I couldn’t wait to hear and learn more. So before I left church that morning, I stopped at the bookstore and bought a Bible (NLT) with the intent of going home and comparing the Scriptures listed in the church bulletin with what I heard Pastor Ron preach that memorable day. While I was excited, I wanted to be sure nothing was exaggerated or left out in that morning’s message. I was immediately convinced and hooked!
Once I opened my mind to learning the truth, I couldn’t get enough. I joined Bible studies, engaged Spiritual mentors, asked a lot of questions until I was satisfied that all my answered were grounded in Scriptural truth, then I read and studied and read and studied some more! In 2008 I became an Ordained Pastor, and from that point on, the reading and studying has only intensified.
The more I learned about Jesus paying the ransom for my Sin, the easier it became to accept him as my Savior. But the more I learned about him as the Son of Man, the Son of God, his ministry, his total dependence of the Father (“I do only what I see the Father do”, John 5:19), his unwavering stance on the Truth, and about his love, compassion, forgiveness and service to his fellow man, the easier it became to accept his as my Lord as well. And because everything he did modeled the truth of God’s Word (“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” John 1:14), it was also easy to accept him as the living Word.
The whole Gospel of Grace exemplifies God’s love for Mankind. Because he created us for a relationship with himself, God had to give us something that no other member of the animal species had. And that would be free-will, or a brain for rational thinking, so we can choose to enter into that relationship with him. But because he is a majestic God, possessing qualities of Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Omnipresence, Ephesians 1-4,7 tells us that even before he created the world and man, he had a plan for our redemption: “Long ago, even before he created the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be worthy and acceptable in his sight. He is so rich in kindness that he purchased our freedom through the blood of his Son, and our sins are forgiven.”
You see, God knew that his proudest creation would turn away from his will to follow his own will, and he also knew that we were too weak to overcome the dilemma of SIN through our own effort. Therefore he always planned to do for us what he knew we were incapable of doing for ourselves. His plan was to provide THE Sacrificial Lamb, Jesus Christ, to pay the ransom for our sin so we could qualify to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
I Peter 1:16 tells us: “I am holy, therefore you must be holy”, meaning set aside for a sacred purpose; to be sin-free. If you are stained with Sin, you cannot enter the new Kingdom of Heaven because sin contaminates, spreads, destroys and kills. If you doubt that, just look at the world around you. Therefore, since Man is incapable of living a sin-free life, Jesus is the ONLY answer because his blood washes away our sin and leaves us white as snow. So now, since we are in Christ, we qualify to pass through the “pearly gates”. As stated in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
All of this is available to anyone who accepts God’s Gift of Grace. 1 Corinthians 5:17 tells us: “You are a new creation in Christ. The old has gone (our sin nature): the new has come.” (Holy Spirit) Now we are capable of becoming the person God created us to be, as professed in Ephesians: 2:10: “For we are God’s Masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ so that we can now do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Notice that our designation moved from “his proudest creation” to “his Masterpiece”)
Because of God’s awe-inspiring plan for our Salvation; and because of Jesus unconditional love for us; and because of the the Holy Spirit’s power to equip us to become the person God created us to be, how can I not look for just the right words to describe the joy I feel about being in Christ. Once I finish my “masterpiece”, perhaps I’ll add ledger lines to one of my blogs and share with you the musical line that accompanies the words, or better yet…perhaps Symphony #1: “The New Covenant!” Who knows??? Remember…I never thought I would write my first blog. 🙂
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May God Bless Ya…
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
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