I just began reading in Galatians and have decided that I am going to camp out there for a while. I am also spending time in Isaiah and am being blessed especially through the memorization of the Servant songs. In reading Galatians 1 there were many verses that captured my attention and spoke to my heart. Galatians 1: 11-15 is one of them. It reads:
11 But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. 12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
13 For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. 14 And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, 16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.
I loved reading this! Even though Paul lived so long ago and lived such a different life than the one that I live, we have had a very similar experience when we came to know Him! I understand exactly what he means when he says "for you have heard of my former conduct..." Paul is incredulous about the change that has occurred in His heart He understands that this change had nothing to do with anything he did or even tried to do...he understands that it was all God. Paul says it best in Romans 1:16 when he says it is the "power of God to salvation to everyone who believes." It is a miracle of miracles when God changes your heart.
My own testimony is so similar to Paul's. When I cried out to God in desperation...not even believing that there really was a God...but just crying out in the thin hope that if there was He would hear me and HE DID! Psalm 40 says:
1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me,
And heard my cry.
2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.
3 He has put a new song in my mouth—
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the LORD.
Truly this is what happened to me as I sat on my couch with a bible I had just purchased in desperation. I began to read in Genesis 1 and then in a blink of an eye...God was there and changed my heart. There was no human explanation. I had tried every self-help book imaginable...God just reached down and pulled me up out of my own misery and selfish desires...So many things were changed at that moment. It was like a veil was lifted that had been over my understanding and now i understood...now the world made sense...everything that had been important before fell away and was replaced by the awesomeness of what was happening in my heart. The God of the universe had come to dwell and I would never be the same. The emptiness that I had felt just minutes ago was filled to overflowing...Jesus was there...My life was in the proper order now and my joy was full. Jesus was at the center.
Now when all this occurred to me in that moment I did not understand it. The only thing I knew was that many of my lifelong beliefs had changed dramatically, the sadness and grief I had been feeling were comforted and in perspective and all this through no effort of my own. I also had an overwhelming, irresistible desire to read His word. I took it everywhere...it was on my lap while I worked, at the table when I ate, under my pillow when I slept...I could not get enough of it...it was my necessary food...and remember I was in Genesis..a book I had tried to read many times in my life to see what all the fuss was about...you know...why the bible was a best selling book. It never made sense until I cried out to God in helplessness and need...until I saw my sin and was devastated. What was even more beautiful was the change that I then saw in my husband's heart and then in my daughter Suzanne's. You see this change in me was not seen only by me, it was seen by my husband who was bit afraid and definitely intrigued. There was something SO different about me that this avowed God hater picked up the bible and read it cover to cover in ONE month! I love what it says in Ephesians 2:
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
The rest is history...my life now and my life before. The first one living for myself and my own selfish desires which is the worst kind of bondage and in the end the Bible says leads to death versus my life now after God reached down and took charge ...the one I now live for Him by His grace. He has brought beauty from ashes. I am a bondservant which is a voluntary slave, to Him...leading not only to life everlasting but to all that He has for me in this life because as it says in Philippians 1: 6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
What did I need to do for this miracle to occur in my heart. I needed to cry out to God, to admit my need, to admit to him that I am a sinner in need of His salvation. I needed to ask Him to come in to my heart and be my Lord. Now I really did none of this sitting on the couch that evening, but God who knows my heart saw it all and graciously reached down and saved me. Anything good you might see in me is Him!
