purpose to melody

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the whole concept of salvation and what it means to call myself a Christian or a believer in Christ. I never really thought about it before, before I went to Urbana, and I always just said I grew up in a Christian home and that I was told about the Bible and Jesus when I was 4 years old. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I really realized that I needed Jesus or that I needed forgiveness for my sins. I think I lived my life all along and went to church and listened to my parents and had all the right answers. I served in the church through children's ministry and on worship teams since I was in junior high. I feel like I never really realized what it meant to be a Christian until very recently. The core beliefs of Christianity are that we are all sinners, that Christ died for our sins in our place, and we have hope for a life in Christ as saved people and are commanded to spread this gospel and to love God and others. I don’t really think that I ever believe that I needed God or that I was a sinner until I repented of my sins and brought my struggles to God at Urbana. As time went on in church and fellowship I didn’t always feel like going and I felt this void in my life that just couldn’t be filled, even thought I was going to church and doing all the right things most of the time and still praying and reading the Bible from time to time. Now when I think about it, I would have to say that I became a Christian in December, 2009. When I mean Christian, I don’t mean just the title, but how I act and what I actually believe and my brokenness when I think of my sins. In the book of Acts, it shows how the people were named Christians, not because of who they were or what they believed in, but how they acted and what they did because of their faith. They need this new name because they were one in Christ, but from many other cultures and in lots of places at the time spread out all over the world, but they were all united by one purpose and their lives were turned around. I think that I made a big U turn last month, and I just feel like everything is okay now, even though on the surface I know that most things are not okay for me right now. I still struggle with a lot of things, but now I have this confidence and faith in Him that I haven’t had before for the longest time. I am rewriting my testimony now, and I am finally seeing how I was before Jesus, and how I saw that I needed Jesus, and now how I am with Jesus. It's not going to the 'grew up in Christian home, always went to church, served in the church, do my devotions, "trying to keep up my spiritual life"' kind of testimony. I never understood or experienced the concept of grace until now. I am saved by grace, through faith. I didn't realize that I needed grace until now. I think that if we don't see that we have a need for grace and mercy, then there is really no way to really experience what is really like to be saved. I think I never grasped the whole concept of grace because I just didn't feel like I needed it and never gave it much thought. But now it's just taken on a whole new meaning for me, instead of being something I had in a learned way, but now in an experienced and something that I am experiencing. I didn't really believe what I was saying I believed for all those years, but now it all makes sense to me. I couldn't really find a better word for it today besides 'hope', but I think that word really sums up what it is. And faith, and love. And as Paul says, love is the most important out of those three. Faith, hope, and love. There's just so much going on in my head right now, and I don't know when and if I'll ever really sort it all out, but I'm sure of one thing.

I'm seeing more and more how this belief or following of Christ is so much more than an individual thing, but really relational and not just for me or someone else, but for both of us, for all of us. I can't just keep this inside, and that's what I'm striving to do, even with so little time here now, I'm going to try to make the best of it, and really just pour out and try to show others the joy and redemption I've found. I feel like a lot of us are missing part of the whole story of the gospel in terms of the individual and relational concept. The whole life of Jesus wasn't just going and saving individuals and showing himself to individuals and just saving us as individuals, but so much more than that, through just what he did and how he acted and where his time was spent and who it was spent with. I never really got that either, and now I'm seeing that I just totally missed the boat there, and I think now I'm on a mission. I don't really know where it's going to take me, but this Bible study/guys group is a place to start. If the apostles and persecuted church of the past and today were/are willing to give up their lives and be tortured for the sake of Christ's mission, I think it just right that it's okay to be slightly uncomfortable here in our comfortable lifestyle. So God help me.

Someone challenged me with something that I had never thought about before. Would my life be or look any different if God disappeared? And would my life look any different than a non-believer if Sunday morning church/other church things were taken away? I think this is something that we should all think long and hard about.