A New Life Begins

How would you like to wake up and discover that you have been so changed that you knew that something amazing happened to you, and you felt like a brand-new person, not perfect but your perspectives and the way you perceived things was different?  It’s like waking from a nightmare and loving your new life that you never imagined you could have.  This sort of scenario has happened to many, many people over the years.  It happened to me and it can happen to you also.

My life for many years was like living a nightmare from the time I was a young kid until I was around thirty-five years old.  My life was a mess; hating things and people alike and the circumstances I was in.  I grew up thinking that no one loved or cared about me.  I was sick quite often and probably depressed and lived in fear of so many things.  As I got older I got into drugs, alcohol, riding chopper motorcycles and partying most of the time I was a mess; a total freak, at least that was the way I felt after I thought about it. 

I was in two terrible marriages, because of my foolishness, that didn’t last long, like I said I was a mess.  What I should do is write a book on my life, I think it would help people not to fall into the same traps that I found myself in.  Then about forty years ago I got truly committed and very serious with the Lord and things changed.  I was delivered from the drugs and alcohol as well as the party lifestyle almost immediately.

I still had a problem with love and I have struggled with that for years but that seems to get better each day.  As time went on I had such a transformation I think it shocked some people, along with myself.  It seemed for a long period of time I was a freak for the devil and then I became what some call a Jesus freak.  There were times I felt I was on the mountaintop, so to speak, also many times I felt I was in a Job situation although the circumstances were different.  I don’t think the Christian life was meant to be a walk in the park like so many people would want you to believe.  Taking up your cross and denying yourself or working out your salvation with fear and trembling doesn’t seem like a walk in the park to me, as it says in Philippians 2:12-16, “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Do all things without murmurings and disputings: that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.”          

I don’t want these things that I wrote to discourage you, if God starts a good work in you He is able to complete the work that He started in you.  I think our problem is that we hear about the good life so often that if we go through any difficulties we think something is strange.  Paul could have never related to the Christian life that we teach today because he went through so much persecution as did the other disciples; our type of Christianity would have seemed foreign to them.  Jesus said in this world you will have tribulation, which means troubles and trials.  Paul said if anyone wants to live a godly life they will be persecuted.

When I read about the church in the Word of God it seems so foreign to what I see today also, at least in some parts of the United States.  It was said of those in Jesus’ day that they turned the world upside down.  I don’t think this would be said about many of our churches today, not with our user-friendly churches and all the entertainment that goes on and the watered-down sermons that are being preached and taught today in many of our congregations.  Most of the disciples were willing to give their lives for the faith, knowing that it wasn’t a walk in the park, so to speak, but also knowing that it was the best way to live; anything else would have been just existing.  

If you would like to have a very fulfilling life, the best you will ever have, you can have it if you make Jesus the Lord of your life.  But I want to make this clear, it may not be the easiest life, but with the peace of the Lord in you and the joy of the Lord as your strength you will be victorious and you with also be a new creation.  I think you must start this journey with true repentance.  Paul talked about godly sorrow leading to repentance unto salvation which need not to be repented of, but worldly sorrow leads to death.  True repentance means that you are truly sorry about your sins and are willing to make a conscious decision to reject your sins and confess your sins and ask the Lord to forgive you and to be your Lord and Savior. When this takes place, you will become a new creation in Christ and you will be a child of God!!  Then your new life will begin, and the Lord’s peace love and joy will fill your heart and life.  Without this rebirth taking place you will never see the kingdom of God!!  May the good Lord bless you and yours and may you all have a super day!!