A brother in Christ asked me recently whether I counted my past life as Paul considered his to have been in (Philippians 3:7-8) – as “loss,” “dung” (KJV), or “rubbish” (NKJV). I said to him, “yes and no,” because I believe that Paul was referring to things like his reputation, education, status among men, and even his passion or “zeal” for God prior to knowing the Lord Jesus Christ – his “confidence in his flesh” (v.3-4) when he said it; I don’t think Paul meant things like the way God was getting his attention in those days. I don’t think that Paul meant “the goads” of the Lord (Acts 9:5) including the devotion of the followers of Christ, whom Paul persecuted, as they faced death or imprisonment for faith in Jesus as Stephen did in (Acts 6:8-7:60).
Why did I say yes and no? Because although my past life was in many ways, a deplorable moral train wreck; along the way, God used some of the things from my past to get my attention.
You see, for most of my life, I have been aware of God because of those things.
As a young teenager I would sing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” in front of my house in the morning, while I was waiting for the bus or a ride to school – because somewhere I learned that Jesus was a Lion. I wouldn’t have called it worship because I didn’t know what that was but I was singing it to Him.
Silly, I know.
I wasn’t really ‘raised’ in church but I went to CCD as a kid – I was a kind of black sheep to the nuns who taught there, but I learned some things about Jesus there too.
Then I heard the rock opera, “Jesus Christ Superstar,” I didn’t know that it was meant to mock Jesus rather than exalt Him so, year after year as 97 Rock in Buffalo NY played the entire work on Easter Sunday, I would listen and sing the songs as an act of remembrance and one day I watched the movie by the same title. On that day, as I watched, Jesus was nailed to a cross while many stood near Him, mocking and laughing and His disciples boarded a bus leaving Him alone to die on the cross – I wept…I cried hard. I asked my mom, “Why did He die like that?” and “Why did, how could His friends leave Him there to die?” Questions that would be answered several years later, on the day I gave my life to Him who gave His for me.
Just because I was aware of God didn’t mean that I knew Him or had accurate knowledge about Him either; the fact was that I really knew very little about Him. For instance, as I grew older and my sins increased, I came to view God as a “three strikes and you’re out” kind of God. Maybe it was because what little exposure I did have to what He is like came from people who taught that you could earn your way into Heaven by doing good. On Easter Sunday morning 1988, I entered into church with the overwhelming conviction that I had sinned one too many times and after hearing a message that involved a gospel presentation when I finally learned the answer to WHY Jesus died like He did, in tears I came forward to ask Him to save my soul.
Did I come to understand Him fully in that hour? No. Did I turn from all of my sins in that hour? No.
I began a new life in Christ, in that hour. I began a journey of transformation, in that hour.
Have I had doubts about God since then? No.
Have I ever had doubts about myself and my relationship to God since then? …Yes, occasionally and especially when I forget that the only works which count for eternal life are the works that Jesus Christ did to save me.
I’m still on that journey today and I have learned a few things about myself and about God during the 32 years since my first encounter with Him on the road I had been traveling. It is from those lessons that I write in order to help those on the road to keep headed in the right direction and also in order to introduce others to the Son of God who died and rose for them like He did for me.
Over the years, the Lord has used tragedy, danger and answered prayer to draw me nearer to Him in faith but the one thing that He has consistently used to humble, refine and draw me nearer to Himself is the mirror He left for us which is His holy word.
More on that later this week….
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