Before Jesus Changed My Life
I would tell myself I was a good person because I grew up in the Lutheran church and was baptized as a baby, and I believed that was enough to be a Christian. Being raised in these circumstances generally made me a good person, but as time passed and I moved on from my childhood, my heart began to harden, though I do not feel it happening. The change is not in what I do, but in what I stop doing. I do not go to church. I do not read Scripture. I do not pray to God. This fractured relationship with God led me to falsely believe I control my life and that happiness is something I can generate of my own will. This heart posture led me to anger, irritability, anxiousness, and depression. These emotions then led me to alcohol abuse and unhealthy relationships. I believed these habits would fill the void in my happiness, when in reality, they left me empty. I was a slave to sin.
Fast forward to my thirties, and many of these problem areas in my life have improved. I am married to the love of my life, Sara. We moved to Cedar Rapids in 2019. We are invited to attend Veritas by friends, the Careys, and it is Sara who urges us through the doors each Sunday. My sin is the same as before, but it feels more subtle now. I go to church, but I do not enjoy it. I do not sing. I do not care for crowds or people. I do not read my Bible. I do not pray to God. I am a man in church who cannot bring himself to speak to the God he claims to know.
How Jesus Changed My Life
A couple of summers ago, Matthew Morken gave a sermon about having a “heart correction”. His words feel personal, as if they were meant for me to hear. I’m brought to tears after his message. It’s at this point that I feel the weight and burden of my hardened heart. The years leading up to this moment: relationships at work, at home, and with family were strained at the cost of a hardened heart. I am present but not there, I love with a muted heart, I speak but reveal nothing. It's at this point that I give my struggles to Jesus Christ and obey Him as my Lord and Savior. Softening a hardened heart dissolves slowly. As I continue to study the Bible and the Gospel, it continually lowers the volume in my life. Troubles still exist, but they no longer define me. As Paul tells us in Romans 6, “…Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” I have chosen to die to sin and become a slave of righteousness by choosing to follow Jesus Christ. I can now “count it all joy” by finding joy in reading Scripture, communing, and praying to God.
My Life After Jesus Saved Me
My belief in Jesus Christ, the Gospel, and the Bible has significantly turned down the volume of my life. The trouble of worldly matters seems small, and little troubles me. This is demonstrated in 1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life – is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” I can trust in the Father because he is a sovereign God, and I trust in him and his will, and I no longer allow myself to be caught up in insignificant matters of this world. To end, my knowledge of eternal life through Jesus Christ is demonstrated in John 6:40, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”