What happened?

I became a Christian because God granted me my wish for peace in my soul.  No matter how much I tried, my conscience got the better of me, when I smoked and drank etc.  I didn't feel guilty as much as bad, bad about walking on a path I had never wanted to walk because I had always believed to have been stronger than that.  I had seen no point in smoking cigarettes as a young teenager, so I thought that responsible and sensible attitude would remain all the days of my life.  It did not.  

When I found myself on the path of self-destruction and identified it as such without denial, the answer to turn to God was obvious.  I was almost flabberghasted at my own stupidity or slowness of catching on that God's way is the right way.  That is the way to life and truth.  God in the heavens above could surely save me from myself, if I couldn't.  Surely no one else thus far had even tried saving me, for they were themselves involved in the things that corrupt the soul.  

After reading the Bible, praying to God, attending church, and getting baptised, I have almost forgotten how life was without God.  Everyday I think about God, about what He wants, and what would please Him, and if I get upset with myself, it is mostly about my imperfections, and my eagerness to be as humble, kind, generous and wonderful as Jesus, my example of a living God.  

Life without God - to me now unimaginable, to many a nuance.  God means church means religion means tradition means boredom means condemnation means death.  Oh, if only they knew!  If only I had known!  God means relationship means love means peace means life means joy.  And have I mentioned peace?  We underestimate peace.  Peace of mind.  A wonderful thing to know you are right with God.  For when we are close to death, we think of God naturally.  Old people start thinking about God, but young ones don't.  Does death come with age?  No, it comes at the will of the Father in heaven.  

The Father comes like a thief in the night, suddenly and without warning.  You won't have time to pick your favourite thing to take along for the ride.  You won't have any choice at all.  That choice is to make here and now.  Whilst on earth.  Before your death.  Tick tock tick tock.  

So in my life it was the party lifestyle that got the better of me that lead me to the question of the meaning and purpose of life.  To someone else who doesn't drink and smoke, it might be another need, or another trap, and no one is to judge me or anyone else for my past, for the things I have done, for we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God.  

To God all sin is of equal measure.  All sin holds the same weight.  All sin is atoned only by blood.  That is the only way out.  That is the only means of escape.  That is the only means of forgiveness.  If we ever get to that point of feeling bad enough about our sins to ask God to forgive us.  If we realise that it is our sin that separates us from God our Father, our Creator, the very Creative Being that created us as the unique individuals that we are. 

Yesterday I realised my lack of understanding of what a high God I serve.  For there is no one higher than God.  There is nothing higher than God.  Nothing and no one can beat God.  God is the good, and the good always overcomes evil in the end.  If you are living your life and you believe that many people are benefiting from evil, remember that they are not at the end yet.  You are seeing a mere glimpse of time.  

So many times people ask, What happened?  Why did Nicole become a Christian?  They start looking and analysing my life as though my past were full of awful things that rationalises my belief in an Almighty God.  People would excuse you and be embarrassed for you, as though you were weaker than they, as though you needed something they could do without.  When we are all looking for the same thing - love, peace and joy.  And yet we don't all know that we can find these things, these intangible things, through the Holy Spirit of God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son.

So if you want to know why I have become a Christian, the answer is that I realised that the reason I was feeling so bad about the kind of life I was living and the attitude I had about life and everything in life was that most of the things I was doing or thinking or saying were sinful.  And once I learnt that sin separates me from God - and I so desperately wanted a relationship with God - I wanted to get rid of that sin.  But I did not know how.  And that is when someone said to me that all I need to do is believe in Jesus Christ as the one who took away my sin when he died on the cross two millenia ago.  

It was Jesus Christ who came to earth as God Incarnate to bear the sufferings that we deserve for our sins, and by this act of crucifixion, he became the Lamb Offering, the Sin offering, the atonement for our sins.  He took away the sins of the world.  One for all and all for one.  He was the one who died for all.  He was the one who made it possible to come to the Father without having to go via anyone else.  Jesus paved the way for us.  He was the one who took the bullet.  And so we live by grace.  

Not only did Jesus Christ die for us, and therefore make it possible for our sins to be forgiven, but He rose again, and beat death.  He won the battle!  He made it possible for us to begin again, to start on a new page, a clean slate.  To be born again!  What a concept!  How I had longed for rebirth.  How I had longed to live life right.  

There was nothing I could have done.  All I needed to do was believe that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the world, by giving up His life in order for us to have a relationship with our Father in heaven.  Once I had seen my sin, identified it, confessed it, I felt a burden fall off my shoulders, but the sin was still swimming in my ocean of life, and it was only when I confessed Jesus as Lord and was baptised that the sins were washed away, and I was born again.  I became a new creation, and I could take on the mind of Christ, and received additionally the gift of the Holy Spirit.  

And once I had done that, I thought back, and said to myself, what was the big deal anyway?  Why didn't I think of this sooner?  What took me so long?  But now that I am on the other side, I ask myself, how can I get people to understand what this is all about?  God, Jesus, salvation, the cross - what does it all mean, and how does it relate to them personally?  I didn't know either before the revelation happened to me.