Show Me The Truth

JC's Disciple, said.... "How has love changed your life?":

I grew up in church and when I was six years old; I went forward during Vacation Bible School and prayed to receive Christ and, in my mind, most important, escape hell. I didn’t really understand completely what I had done, and unfortunately, I did not receive much discipling. In fact, my church began to teach me that while Jesus could save me initially, there were many things that I could do “wrong” that could cause me to “lose my salvation”. I found this rather confusing and scary throughout most of my childhood, and I remember having many occasions at night afraid to go to sleep for fear I might have “lost” my salvation that day by something bad I had done. I carried this burden around with me for the next 18 years and added to it a Type A perfectionist personality. Needless to say, I was very unhappy and I could not figure out how exactly to have the kind of Christian life that I saw other people having.

In my early twenties, I was living in Memphis with my husband while we attended professional school. He was in optometry school and I was in pharmacy school. We went to church on occasion, but by all accounts we were living outside of God’s will and our marriage was not doing well. I was having lots of personal turmoil and stress about my future and on September 10, 2001, despite my prideful desire to control my own life, I decided to consult a psychologist to see if he could help me with my anxiety and worry about my life and its meaning. He essentially gave me the Type A personality pep talk, and said that I just needed to let things go. So, of course, I walked out with the attitude that “I” would be able to gain control over this, I just needed to make the decision to do so. I went home and told my husband the good news, to which, I am sure he thought, “Whatever.”

The next morning was September 11, 2001. As I prepared to leave for clinic, I was stopped, as was the rest of the world, by the crashing of two planes into the World Trade Center. Immediately, I began flipping channels looking for evidence that Christians were still on the planet. I had heard about the rapture and I was terrified that I had waited too long to turn around and I had been left behind. Once it was clear that Jesus had not returned, I began to really get honest with God. I went to church the following Sunday (as did most red blooded Americans) and all the next week I began reading the Bible. I finally came to a point where I said to God with an honest heart, but a very bold one, “I need you to show me the truth, or I need you to get out of my life and leave me alone. I can’t live like this anymore.” God, in his gracious mercy, did not strike me right there. Instead, he took me to a passage in Hebrews 10,“And what God wants is for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time (emphasis mine). Under the old covenant, the priest stands before the altar day after day, offering sacrifices that can never take away sins. But our High Priest offered himself to God as one sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down at the place of highest honor at God’s right hand.” Hebrews 10:9-12

There it was: the Truth! Truth is a person named Jesus Christ and his offering was once for all time. No more offering sacrifices. I was free, I could not lose my salvation. The church had been wrong, but God’s truth had set me free. My passion now is to share with the world the TRUTH of our salvation. There is so much confusion, but there shouldn’t be. God will show you the Truth if you will just seek it. Glory be to my savior who sits in the place of highest honor at God’s right hand and in my heart. Amen

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