Up until now, most of what I've shared here has been Christ in me. The
spiritual truths that I've come to realize through my relationship
with Jesus, and the wisdom I've received from the Holy Spirit through my
study of God's word. Not that I have become an authority on spiritual
matters, and not because I am holy by any measure, for the only holiness
in me comes from Christ and I still have a long road ahead of me in my
walk with the Lord. But the things I have shared have been the things I
have been led by the Spirit to share. That along with sharing how my life
has been changed since I accepted the incredible gift of God's grace is
the purpose of this forum for me.
Today though, I want to share a little of what I was like before Christ. Those of you who are close to me already know, but I want those of you who don't know me as well, to be able to see just how awesome a work the Lord has done and is doing in my life.
At the time that I accepted Christ, I was 28, divorced and had a live-in boyfriend. I was pretty much a sinner's sinner. I had lived my life on my own terms from the age of 18. I left home shortly after graduating high school and was married by 19. Pretty early on I thought I had life figured out. I was in love. What I thought was love anyway. The only thing I knew as love, I guess, so I got married. I was old enough to make my own decisions, so I did.
Six years later I'm back at my parents home, separated from my husband. I'm emotionally crushed, disappointed in myself, ashamed, and trying to pick up the pieces. It's difficult for me to even think about my life back then, not because I can't remember, but because I remember all of it. I remember every shameful, awful, degrading detail. I didn't have a whole lot of respect for myself at that point in my life, and I ended up living in a very dark place for about a year and a half. I did whatever I could to numb the pain. I sought comfort anywhere I could find it, and that usually meant any guy's arms who would give me the time of day.
I'm not proud of the way I lived back then, so please don't mistake what I'm about to say. In those days, the days that I lived BC, (before I knew Christ), I did what made Me feel good. I lived for myself and sought out what I thought would make Me happy. Back then, I didn't think there was anything wrong with what I was doing. I thought what I was doing was how you got over heart-break. Only now, that I know my Savior and His love for me, do I see how ignorant and foolish I was back then.
Those of you who really know me know that the 'BC Jami' would never, ever admit the things that I've just admitted. Not even to herself, much less here in such a public way where the whole world-wide-web can see! That fact alone is proof of the incredible transforming work Christ is doing in my life!!
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
As a new believer, it took me a little while to understand what the above verse meant. But even though I didn't understand it at first, the Lord still spoke to me through His Spirit about certain areas of my life. Now when I say that the Lord "spoke to me" I don't mean I actually heard Him whisper things in my ear. The Holy Spirit that lives inside all believers has a way of teaching us about the things of God.
The best way I can describe what my encounters w/the Holy Spirit have been like would be to compare it with what people identify as one's conscience. Thoughts will come to me, sometimes out of the blue, and sometimes when I am seeking the Lord's wisdom and guidance on a particular issue. But how I know they are not my own, or even of my own mind, is that they aren't usually things I would think of on my own. At least at first they weren't. As I grow in my faith my mind is becoming more and more like the mind of Christ, (See 1 Corinthians 2), so when the Spirit speaks to me now it doesn't seem as strange as when I was a new believer.
2 Corinthians 4:1-2 and 5-6 "Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ." (NIV)
The first area of my life where the Holy Spirit "shined the light of the knowledge of God" on was my relationship w/my boyfriend. As I mentioned earlier, I was living w/my now husband, then boyfriend, at the time of my salvation. Sin was and had been a pretty big part of my life. It always had been, but 'BC Jami' never really thought of it like that. Before I came to the Truth I never really understood what sin meant. I'd heard others say "we are all sinners", but I honestly had no idea what it was that made us 'all sinners'.
I honestly didn't have any comprehension of what sin was, just of what I thought was right and wrong. What I didn't know back then, in my BC life, was that there are things that are right, and there are things that are wrong, but it's not up to us to determine such things. We were not created to decide for ourselves right from wrong. Things are either right or wrong, and because they are, God says so.
(NIV) Genesis 2:15-17 "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will certainly die.”
The Lord God didn't command Adam not to eat from the tree to scare him into doing what He said. God told Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good & evil because He wanted Adam to choose HIM to be his teacher of what is good and what is evil. God wanted Adam to choose Him, as his creator, to be the source he came to to learn about such things. God wanted Adam, who He created in His own image, to depend on HIM to be the sustainer of his life. God knew before he even created Adam, what Adam would do, and still he wanted Adam to choose to put HIM before himself. But it had to be Adam's choice...
(NASB) Genesis 3:4-5 "The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So one day, a few weeks after I accepted Christ and the gift of salvation, I'm doing a load of laundry when a thought occurs to me. "Paul and I really need to abstain from having sex until we're married."
'What? Where did that come from?' I thought to myself..."You know Jami." came the reply from somewhere inside me, "You know that this is right." I stopped what I was doing for a moment and thought about what had just happened.
I reflected upon my life prior to becoming a believer, and I came to the realization that 'BC Jami' would never have thought twice about sleeping with her boyfriend. She wouldn't have thought there was anything wrong with it. After all, the two of us had spoken about marriage and even decided we would marry one day. I knew I didn't want to be with anyone else and neither did he. But for me to have the thought that it was wrong for me to be sleeping with the man I was living with, who I had decided I would one day marry, that had to be coming from someone other than me. I didn't know much about being a new believer, but I knew that the Jami I knew, the Jami I had been my entire life, would not have had that kind of thought on her own.
(NIV) 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them."
When I surrendered my life to God and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, the Jami that I was, 'BC Jami', was replaced with a brand 'New Jami'. The scripture above states that is what happens to those who are "in Christ", and that it's from God himself who "reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation".
(NIV) John 1:29 "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
2 Corinthians 5:21 "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (NIV)
It was only through Jesus and his work on the cross that God could reconcile the world to himself. Only by providing a perfect sacrifice without spot or blemish could he "take away the sins of the world", like John says. In doing so, God made a way for all of us who believe not only to be forgiven and our sin removed, but also to become "the righteousness of God."
2 Corinthians 5:15 "And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again." (NIV)
Our Heavenly Father desires for us to live for something greater than ourselves-He desires for us to live for HIM!
I like how Mark Hall, (lead singer of Casting Crowns), put it in his book, The Well.....
(NASB) Genesis 3:4-5 "The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So one day, a few weeks after I accepted Christ and the gift of salvation, I'm doing a load of laundry when a thought occurs to me. "Paul and I really need to abstain from having sex until we're married."
'What? Where did that come from?' I thought to myself..."You know Jami." came the reply from somewhere inside me, "You know that this is right." I stopped what I was doing for a moment and thought about what had just happened.
I reflected upon my life prior to becoming a believer, and I came to the realization that 'BC Jami' would never have thought twice about sleeping with her boyfriend. She wouldn't have thought there was anything wrong with it. After all, the two of us had spoken about marriage and even decided we would marry one day. I knew I didn't want to be with anyone else and neither did he. But for me to have the thought that it was wrong for me to be sleeping with the man I was living with, who I had decided I would one day marry, that had to be coming from someone other than me. I didn't know much about being a new believer, but I knew that the Jami I knew, the Jami I had been my entire life, would not have had that kind of thought on her own.
(NIV) 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them."
When I surrendered my life to God and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, the Jami that I was, 'BC Jami', was replaced with a brand 'New Jami'. The scripture above states that is what happens to those who are "in Christ", and that it's from God himself who "reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation".
(NIV) John 1:29 "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
2 Corinthians 5:21 "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (NIV)
It was only through Jesus and his work on the cross that God could reconcile the world to himself. Only by providing a perfect sacrifice without spot or blemish could he "take away the sins of the world", like John says. In doing so, God made a way for all of us who believe not only to be forgiven and our sin removed, but also to become "the righteousness of God."
2 Corinthians 5:15 "And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again." (NIV)
Our Heavenly Father desires for us to live for something greater than ourselves-He desires for us to live for HIM!
I like how Mark Hall, (lead singer of Casting Crowns), put it in his book, The Well.....
"Our human nature makes us see him-[Jesus]-as useful to us instead of Lord over us. We see him as the fixer and the sprinkler of blessings. We want him to come join us and bless what we're doing when what He longs to do is transform our hearts and minds." [pg. 25]
"Jesus is not going to come join our lives. Jesus wants to become our lives. He is going to say, "I want to be Lord of it all. I want to run this thing. But if you insist, I'll step out of the way & let you run it." [pg. 103]
"God made us in his image. He gave us a mind, will, and emotions. He gave us the freedom to make decisions and choose whether to obey him or betray him. He wants us to desire him, pursue him, love him. He does not want robots. He had to make us alive when we were spiritually dead, but now that we're alive, He wants our allegiance, our trust, and our love." [pg. 120]
John 14:23-24 (NKJV) Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me."
Like Adam, we all have a choice to make. We get to decide what kind of relationship we're going to have with God, if any. We get to decide if we're going to accept who Jesus was and what he did for all of us, or not. We get to decide.
I've come to realize that much of a believer's walk is an act of will. We can have faith, but true faith demands action. Our faith is only made complete when we step out and follow Jesus' lead. We have to decide to take action when He speaks to us. We have to decide to obey. When we decide to obey and follow Jesus' lead in our lives, we find out just how true our faith is.
So later that same night I told Paul what I had experienced while doing the laundry. I told him I thought it would be best if we waited to be intimate with one another until after we were married. I told him I wanted to do this in response to what I felt the Lord telling me was the right thing for us to do. He was more understanding and supportive of this decision than I expected and seemed genuinely pleased that I was choosing to follow the lead of my Lord as I felt directed to. This was in May of 2010.
At the end of June he proposed to me in front of my family and about half a dozen of our closest friends, at a surprise birthday dinner that he had planned for me. I was incredibly touched by the effort he put forth to make my birthday so special. It was the most thoughtful, romantic thing anyone had ever done for me. I accepted of course, and we were married in November 2010.
If I had it to do all over again I wouldn't change a thing. Our first night as husband and wife was totally worth the wait! ; ]
(NKJV) Song of Solomon 6:3 "I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine."
Until my next post...
(NASB) Psalm 9:1-2 "I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart; I will tell of all Your wonders. I will be glad and exult in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High."
(NASB) Psalm 9:1-2 "I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart; I will tell of all Your wonders. I will be glad and exult in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High."
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