For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:17 NIV)
I was going to church, believed in God, and read the Bible, but was I a true believer?
For the first time in my life, I seriously began to ask myself questions. Did I believe? Was I saved? It bothered me that, in the midst of the crazy dreams that pointed me towards God, I had also been having dreams in which I died and didn’t see the light that people talk about going towards, dreams in which I climbed endless ladders and rode elevators that traversed hundreds of floors but never led anywhere, dreams of dark, grimy hallways that looked like a grungy pet shop, only instead of hamsters and goldfish, the creatures trapped behind the glass were grotesque and mutated. I don’t attribute these dreams to any anxiety caused by things I’d heard at church, because these dreams had been occurring for years, before I ever started listening to sermons.
I had been attending church regularly for nearly two years by that point, and I knew that Christianity teaches salvation through Jesus alone– a doctrine I had rejected as a young adult. The Apostle Paul wrote, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). While I did believe that Jesus existed and sacrificed His life out of His love for humankind, I had to ask myself if I truly believed that He is the Lord.
It disturbed me that I couldn’t answer that question.
Earlier that summer, Brennan Manning was a guest speaker at our church and kept talking about his “love affair” with Jesus. What did that mean? A love affair with a deity? It was just too weird for me. I didn’t doubt that Jesus was real, but why didn’t I feel this kind of love for Him? In an impromptu prayer, I said, “God, I don’t know what it means to have a ‘love affair’ with Jesus, but whatever that is, I want one.”
Later that week, I was at home, having lunch by myself while watching The People’s Court on TV. (Hey, I was unemployed.) Never did I expect that my life would change drastically while following a case about a hot dog vendor who got cheated.
I can’t explain why this particular case gripped me– it was only a small-claims case involving lost wages related to french fries or something– but my heart swelled with compassion and sorrow for the vendor. I was outraged that he had been cheated out of what was rightfully his, by a con artist whom I held a simmering anger towards. I wanted justice for the the hot dog vendor, who was only trying to eke out a living, and wished I could do something to help him.
As this swirl of emotions rushed through me, The Voice rang out in my soul and asked, “You know what you’re feeling about this person, whom you don’t even know? It’s nothing compared to My love for you, and that’s why–”
I didn’t hear the rest of that sentence, but the missing words exploded in my being.
“I AM.”
Two words that blasted me like a thunderbolt, incinerating all my doubts and questions about Jesus.
“I AM.”
In that split-second, Jesus made sense to me. I understood Him to be the Son of God, who was sent into the world not to condemn it, but to save it (Jn. 3:16-17). I suddenly recognized the depths of my own sin, now exposed in His light (Eph. 5:11-13), and saw that I could never earn my own salvation. Jesus paid the price for our sins when He was executed on a cross, and He did it out of God’s love for us.
“I AM.”
Jesus said:
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (Jn. 6:35).
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (Jn. 8:12).
“I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved” (Jn. 10:9).
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (Jn. 10:11).
“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die” (Jn. 11:25-26).
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn. 14:6).
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5).
This all made sense to me in a flash, like an instant download, and something within me shattered. I began to laugh and weep at the same time: laughing with the joy of finally knowing Jesus, and weeping upon the realization of just how much I had sinned– and more importantly, how much I had been forgiven because Jesus died on a cross for us.
Overwhelmed by God’s mercy, grace, love, and kindness, I fell out of my seat and hit the floor, the tears and the laughter continuing to gush out of me. As I lay there, I could feel my heart igniting with a sense of love, joy, and peace that I had never known before, burning away a sense of heaviness that I hadn’t been aware of until it was gone.
I felt like a brand-new person.
I used to recoil at the term “born-again Christian,” having associated it with friends and relatives who would come back from a youth retreat and suddenly start burning their music and book collections, but now, I knew what it meant to be “born again.” It wasn’t just some label; it was a very real transformation.
I was thirty-four years old when I came to know Jesus, a full seventeen years after the day I went to church with my Mom after school and prayed, “God, I want to know who You are.”
Though my journey had been long, it was far from over. I had just begun a new chapter.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Cor. 5:17 NIV)
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