Stronger

Seven years ago my life was very different than it is now. When I look back on that time and who I was and what I was doing and the people who were in my life, it’s hard to recognize anything. It seems like someone else’s life, except that I know that it was mine. I felt different, emotionally, physically and spiritually, I thought differently, I wanted different things. I felt differently about myself and saw myself in a very different way. It was a time of big transition from my old life before Christ to my new life in Christ, and so parts of the old and the new were mixed together sometimes in ways that don’t seem possible. But when God comes into your life, the supernatural starts to happen, and things that you used to do that are like old clothes that you thought still fit you start to feel really uncomfortable until one day you just stop doing them because you don’t want to wear those old clothes any more.

Ephesians 4 talks about this new life in Christ. I checked several versions and most talk about the old self as having “deceitful lusts and sinful desires,” which is honestly what they are, but the language is so harsh that sometimes these are things that can put us off if we’re not ready to hear them. I like the Message translation in verses 20-24, “You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to Him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything – and I do mean everything – connected with that old life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life – a God fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces His character in you.”

There’s something that happens when we accept Jesus and the Holy Spirit comes to live within us. There is no way that we can continue to live the way we used to live. We may try for a while, but just like those old clothes, the way we lived before Christ just doesn’t fit any more. The change is gradual in some areas, and fast in others. There are some things that go right away and some that take longer to go. That’s why sometimes there are some sections of the Bible that can sound harsh to us – when we are still fighting with the Holy Spirit over who is going to be in charge, words like “deceitful lusts and sinful desires” can make us think that God is too judgmental and that He doesn’t want us to have any fun. But that’s not the case at all. When we start to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us and when we listen to His leading instead of those people and things of the past that we have always listened to, when we open our hearts and minds fully to the idea of renewal and change, we find that we can still have fun, only it’s a very different thing than what we used to call fun – the fun we have now is actually really fun, and the things that we used to call fun we see as entirely the opposite.

I remember back in that time seven years ago seeing the darkness in some people and places that I had never seen before. The Holy Spirit gives us a gift of discernment, meaning that we can actually see the spiritual energy that surrounds people and things and places. Some things take on a soft and warm glow and some look dark and decaying and dingy. Things and places and people that we used to feel comfortable around are suddenly full of darkness that makes us want to stay away or in some cases to pray for the deliverance of that person or place. We’ll see people who have the spirit of joy in them, we’ll see gentle and quiet spirits in people that we meet. We’ll walk into a place and feel the presence of God and feel like we’re finally at home.

But there will sometimes be a resistance to this new growing of a new life, this new outlook and vision. Sometimes the things of the past will draw us back, even as we try to move forward. I remember a time when I was with a friend who was not walking with Christ and who was doing a lot of drugs. I had been walking with Christ for several months, but in my life before, partying was a way of life. But there came a time that hanging out with this friend made me somehow feel really awful, and it wasn’t shame or guilt that made me feel that way, and it wasn't judgment on this friend in any way. I loved this friend, but I was really seeing what that life was like for the first time. It is those experiences that help us to stop doing those things that are hurtful to us from our past. When our eyes are opened to the dark energy surrounding them, their appeal is broken once and for all.

There’s a song that I love to sing when I am feeling strong or when I am feeling weak, Hillsong’s “Stronger.” “There is a love that came for us, humbled to a sinner’s cross. You broke my shame and sinfulness, You rose again victorious. Faithfulness none can deny, through the storm and through the fire. There is truth that sets me free, Jesus Christ who lives in me. You are stronger You are stronger sin is broken, You have saved me. It is written, Christ is risen, Jesus You are Lord of all. No beginning and no end, You’re my hope and my defense. You came to seek and save the lost, You paid it all upon the cross.” The song ends with the words, “So let Your name be lifted higher, be lifted higher, be lifted higher.” The name of Jesus is the name above all names, higher and more powerful than anything else that exists. Nothing can stand before the name of Jesus, and at the mention of His name, the power of all sin is broken.

The process of salvation happens in an instant, we say yes to Jesus, and we are saved, it is as simple as that. But the process of healing and renewal can take much longer, and there are some things that have become so much a part of us that it takes time for them to be removed and for new and better things to take their place. People sometimes compare the process to surgery, and Christ is indeed the Great Physician. And the wonder of it all is that we don’t even really know that the surgery is taking place. Sometimes we go through painful times, but when they are over, we know we are changed for the better. Then we look back and realize that He was working within us, changing and renewing and restoring, and that all the while when we were feeling lost and broken He was at work healing us of those things that were making us feel lost and broken so we would never have to feel that pain again.

When we say yes to Jesus, we say yes to so much good that we can’t even know how much we are saying yes to. 1 Corinthians 2:9 tells us, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.” When we say yes to Jesus, we say yes to joy, to peace, to love, and we say yes to victory once and for all over everything that would try to hold us back from what He has planned for us.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan