Anamchara

Changed Lives

I was visiting with an old friend on the telephone yesterday. Jerry is some thirty years my senior, and I consider him one of my closest friends. When I was in high school, several of us guys converted to Christianity. Jerry used to have us over to his home every Sunday night for some conversation and Bible study. Jerry had recently converted to Christianity, and he talked with us as equals.

Yesterday, Jerry was telling me how he came to believe in Jesus. His wife, Jean, had converted first, and he was watching her from a distance, so to speak. What got his attention was the change he began to see in Jean, and the other new Christians she was meeting with.

Changed lives. The result of the Gospel, the Good News. Not the substituting of one set of rules and regulations for another, but a change in, and of, the heart. The "power of the gospel" showing up as changed lives, "rooted and grounded in love." A relationship with the Christ, an historical figure who lived, was crucified, died, and was resurrected some two thousand years ago.

I am always amazed how all of life, and I mean all of life, is found, expessed, and summed up in the person of Jesus Christ. This overused phrase, "changed lives," means allot of different things to different people, but in my experience, there is a certain aroma surrounding the real deal.

I'm glad Jerry was, and is, around to bear witness to the power of God as revealed through Jesus Christ.

posted by Anamchara @ 8:39 AM