I Am Changed

          

         There’s a Christian song that tells the story of a man who finds the Lord but his friends doubt its authenticity when they remember his former life.  In their minds their friend had lived such a notorious life, it isn’t possible he could turn away and live a life for Christ.  Yet, time proved him a man dedicated to the cause of The Lord.

            We are all born as sinners.   But God has given us an alternative to a sinful life.  He has given us Jesus so we can be saved by grace! 

            Imagine, if you will, yourself as one drop of water in a large body of water.  You are without any specific form and just flowing with the massive body surrounding you.  You have no control as you bounce around from one side of the bank to the other, rebounding from limbs, leaves and other foreign objects on which you land, and spring forth with force as you gather speed heading forward into unknown territory!  Then you become captured into the waterway that leads to the side of a mountain and eventually find yourself flowing from this mountain in the freezing cold of winter and being shaped and formed into a shiny, exquisitely beautiful crystal.  

            Our lives in Christ can be described this way.  As sinners, we belong in a large body of people who are moving forward, in no real worthwhile direction.  We bounce off walls, and other people as we make choices, often taking us in directions we had not intended with catastrophic consequences.  Our peers and culture encourages us onward into a spiraling chasm of destruction much like the water drop speeding headlong into unknown territory.

            A miraculous event then takes place.  We are drawn into a meeting with Christ.  He captures our heart and we find ourselves changing from the sinful creature we are, into the exquisitely beautiful person God can form and mold us to become; the crystal we are meant to be.

            We are no longer the lost soul with no direction except down.  We have changed course and are beginning a new life with our old lives behind us.  We are no longer dark and ugly with the poison of satan ruling.  Satan has been evicted from our once condemned souls.  He has been replaced with Christ’s Righteousness making us pure and clothed in white. 

            The water drop is still water, but now in different form.  It can be recognized if the temperature rises and the ice crystal melts.  As long as the drop stays frozen it is not deemed a water droplet.  We can be like the water droplet, that now no longer looks like it once was. 

When we are changed by God and follow Him with our total being, we may “look” the same physically, but spiritually we look totally unrecognizable from our former form!  Our behavior, language, motives, and desires all change.  We have a new focus on life.  We have such a change,  those around us, who may have known us all our lives will see the difference. People may even note the change and for a time, be skeptical about our genuineness. 

So I challenge you to be like the water droplet changed into the ice! Change for Christ!