A Subject I know Something About

(This is my favorite verse in the Bible, Isaiah 1:18) … Come now, and let us REASON together, says the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
(I want to use that verse as a backdrop to this post.)

I know something about me. Not that I am important. The Supreme Being as revealed in history and in His Word through the Lord Jesus Christ is the important One. I am a sinner saved by Grace. He saved my life and here’s how:

I was working as a waitress in a Big Boy restaurant. My twenty years of life had brought me to blatant sin and complete agnosticism. Two guys came there every day for coffee. They talked about the Bible all the time and were very friendly and interested in talking to me. One of them told me that Jesus Christ loved me. (They talked like He was a real person, not just an abstraction.) I laughed. “I know all about that…I went to Catholic school and have learned about religion since I was in diapers … and I don’t believe any of it. You don’t have to waste your time on me. In fact, I think believing anything is foolish because it is saying you know something that you can’t prove.”

These two men kept reading things to me from His Word in-between coffee refills. They went back to Genesis and convinced me that it was obvious there was a God who created us. (This was not hard, which is why I now think that it is such a shame so many young people are not exposed to creation/Genesis. Also, the rest of the story was built upon this foundation and it all fit together and made SENSE). I had not been receptive at first. However, as that summer moved on, mingled with the Old Testament, I heard words from Jesus that I had never before heard. This was not the meek and mild …let people walk all over you … person that I had grown up believing was Jesus. This was not the … make you feel guilty and obligate you to live a way that doesn’t match what is inside you … religion that I rejected. More importantly, it was explained to me that Christ had paid for all of my sins and He wanted me to come to Him just as I was … not AFTER I stopped sinning … not when I was ready to be a good little girl. The message was: turn to him to escape condemnation!

The REASONING was clear … what did I have to lose if I turned to Him as I heard Him clearly calling to me from the pages of Scripture? It was a free gift. I would probably die from some alcohol related accident soon anyways. (I truly thought this).

He came into my life and I changed from the inside out. I have never been the same! I know there are lots of different theological positions on “the point of contact” and how God saves a person … how their freewill is involved etc ... But I just want to, on this post, give Him such praise and glory for saving me with his wonderful Grace: I deserved death and hell and I really thought my life would end soon, but he cleansed me and predestined me for heaven. He created a new heart from that lump of stone in my chest. He also redeemed my life that was laid waste by sin. REASONABLE in God's universe! Thank you Jesus!