Sunday, September 15, 2024

When God Comes Knocking

 




Now, when it delights God, Who severs me through my mother's womb and calls me through His grace, to unveil His Son in me that I may evangelizing Him among the nations. 

Paul to the Galatians 2: 20, Concordant New Testament 


I recently saw part of an interview that University of Colorado football coach "Neon" Deon Sanders gave.  The question was raised of when he became a Christian.  Well, Deon answered with a slew of the wrong behaviors in which he used to engage.  Behaviors in which he admittedly placed himself as most important.  The drinking, the adulterous behaviors and the pride, he laid it all out.  I can testify to Deon's account, because I remember the media stories of his exploits both on and off the field.  How his brash arrogance often led him into a slew of bad behaviors.  As a result, he developed a reputation as just another rich, entitled football player.  In many ways he was.  Yet through it all, Deon claimed that all of his money, fame and attention left him feeling unfulfilled and empty.  That it was only through Christ Jesus that he truly saw the true definition of love.  Now, I'm not sure if there was one person who inspired Deon's belief in Jesus, which is entirely possible.  However, it is also through the leading and revelation of the Father that He reveals His Son into our lives.  In Galatians, the apostle Paul speaks to how the Father chose in His timing to "Reveal His Son in me" {Paul to the Galatians 2:20}.  We know of Paul's Damascus Road experience, where he came face to face with Jesus, the one Whom he was persecuting.  In many ways, this was Paul's "Come to Jesus" moment.  I've experienced one of those moments in my own life as well.  It's that moment when God opens your heart and reveals to us the one true love of His Son {First epistle of John 4:8}.  In fact, I would have asked Deon a different question.  Instead of asking him when he became a Christian, I would have asked him when it was that he became aware that God was real.  Because this is indeed the desire of the Father, that His children come to know Him.  


In the last of these days He speaks to us in a Son, Whom He appoints enjoyer of the allotment of all, through Whom He also makes the eons; Who, being the effulgence of His glory and emblem of His assumption, besides carrying on all by His powerful declaration, making a cleansing of sins, is seated at the right hand of the majesty in the heights.  

To the Hebrews 1: 2-3, Concordant New Testament 


It's definitely a moment that I will always remember.  My own come to Jesus moment.  Of how, after more than a few years of seeing myself as more important.  After many years of chasing after what I desired instead of following where the Lord directed.  My own Damascus Road experience took place one night outside a strip club in Portland.  In that moment, God spoke to my heart that I was not the man who I thought I was.  I was not that man who spent countless days in pursuit of what I desired.  I was not the man who knew about Jesus yet never really knew Him personally.  The man I was, was a child of the living God {First Epistle of John 3:1}.  This is my one true identity.  I have been created in the essence of His image {Genesis 1:27}.  I also share life in union with Him {Johns Account 14:20}.  I cannot speak to this being the same revelation which Deon Sanders speaks of, but this was my own  awakening.  This is also that moment in which God chose to reveal the truth of His Son to me.  I began to see Jesus for who He is, not for who I was taught that He was.  There have been many testimonies of how many believers came to know the Lord, but this one is mine.  His desire has been fulfilled in that I have come to know the Father.  The day will come when He comes knocking, will you answer?  


~Scott~ 

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