Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Romans 5:1
Sometimes in life, things don't always go the way you had planned. People change, situations change, motivations change. Sometimes things that start our harmless become something you would have never imagined. We can live our lives thinking we are living for the Lord, and be walking in the totally opposite direction. It's only when the Lord reaches down and opens our eyes that we can see where we are. He opens our eyes to our need for salvation and our incapability to do it on our own. Only when we realize we cant do it alone and surrender to him can we truly find peace in our lives and peace with God.
When I was a junior in college when asked I would have told everyone that I was a believer in Jesus Christ. I would have told you that God was my number one priority and that I had been saved and was living the life of someone who had been set apart by being a Christian. Many people believed me. I even believed myself. I was a good person. I went to a Christian group several times a week. I was apart of a small discipleship group where we were studying the bible deeply. I had grown up in church and knew all the right answers, and had even said that I joined my sorority so that I could reach out to girls that didn't know the Lord. But it was all a lie.
I grew up in church, and had always known that I should be a Christian. I remember several long conversations with family and friends about God and about how I should make a profession that Jesus was my savior. I knew in my heart that it was the thing to do, but I was so ashamed. I thought I would look like a hypocrite when I walked to the front of the church and announced that I wanted to be a Christian, because so many people thought I was. I remember nights of hiding the fact that I was reading my bible from my parents because i was afraid they would make me go to the front of the church and i was scared. I spent pretty much every night growing up praying the prayer of salvation and every Sunday gripping the pew in front of me during the invitation because i was ignoring the Holy Spirit Calling me.
When I was a senior in high school, I wanted to go to a small Baptist College and knew there was a scholarship if I was a member of a Baptist Church. I finally went down during the invitation, told the pastor that I had been a Christian for a long time but had never been baptized. Even after I was baptized I still continued to pray to God to save me every night because I had no assurance of my salvation. My College plans changed and I ended up at WCU. My entire first semester I didn't go to church, and I didn't have hardly anything to do with God. With every Sunday there was an excuse. What it boiled down to was that I had no desire to be around Christians, and no desire to worship the Lord. (#1 sign that something was wrong in my life)
For three years my life was built around having a good time. I retained my good - girl image and most people called me a Christian, but I had no peace. I was apart of a Christian organization and had started going back to church. People would give their testimonies on Tuesday nights for our meetings and I was never asked to give mine. My feelings were hurt and when leaders would question my testimony, I got very defensive.
My Junior year I met a guy, and long story short by the end of the first semester, I had dropped out of all of my classes, quit my job, and moved to this guys home town (With two weeks to go in the semester). My life fell apart. I had no one to turn to. I tried reaching out to God several months into living in this situation, but my life was so full of sin I couldn't hear God or feel him which frustrated me even more. The situation got worse and worse. The guy was not good for me to say the least. I was being cheated on, and I had no one to walk me through it.
Six months later after breaking up with this guy, and a binge spree of dating, that was not biblical I ended up back at Western. I reconnected with some friends from my Christian organization and I remember one night looking at my friend April and telling her that I didn't want to play pretend anymore. I was so tired of pretending to be a Christian, so tired of walking each day alone. And it was that night by my bedside that I gave my life to the Lord. The patterns in my life did not change overnight, but my desire to change did, and little by little I began to grow and realize that I was called to a much more righteous life. I was called to a life that was not full of sin, and that I should strive to live like Jesus did.
At that point there was a change. I realized that Jesus had paid the penalty for my sins. He had taken all the bad thing I had ever done, all my wrong attitudes, all my bad motives and he had paid the price for them on Calvary before I was even born. In that moment of surrendering my life to the Lord I was justified.( I was made right in the eyes of GOd.) My faith that because of what Jesus had done and not who I was had sealed my fate, gave me a peace that I cant explain. I no longer worried what would happen if Jesus came back. My out look on things changed. I had always said that I didn't want Jesus to come back before i could have children and get married, but at that point I realized the quicker he came the better things would be. I wanted children but this world is getting worse and worse and it would be better for him to come than for me to bring children into the world. At that point I realized that my desires had changed. I saw Jesus's return as a joyous moment, not a moment to fear.
I had peace. The three or four years I had spent at Western before this defining moment and the year I spent getting myself back to Cullowhee after leaving was a time of absolute turmoil. I had NO peace with anyone, especially not God, but when I turned my life to him, my actions changed, my desires changed, my motives changed, and I had perfect peace in my identity as a believer in Jesus Christ because I knew that God had forgiven me and that Jesus would stand in my place and allow me an opportunity to start over
My prayer for you is that if you have this peace, that you share it with others. I wouldn't be able to share mine today if someone hadn't first shared it with me. If you don't have this peace that comes from surrendering your life to Jesus, my prayer is that the Holy Spirit would draw you to a place where you realize you cant do it on your own and you realize your need for a savior to save you from the sin that is keeping you apart from the Lord.
I was given a second chance, but we never know when our chances run out, please don't close another day without having the peace that you find when you are justified by Faith in Jesus.
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