From Liar to Beloved

Before I received eternal life I felt a lot of insecurity and a need to please others to secure their attention or affection.

Even as a little child, I remember lying about things I had done wrong, and telling tall tales to make myself look more important. As I got older, I created a false self that could change to be whatever it took to be noticed or liked. This trajectory just led to guilt, shame and regret . . . and more hiding.

Finally, someone whose life had been more messed up than mine, shared how his life had been transformed by Jesus Christ. He talked about him as if he was alive today, not just a historical figure. He explained that God became a human being and lived for a time on earth, to show us the way to be made right with him and by paying the penalty for the Sin that was killing me. After hearing all that Jesus has done for us, I joyfully received his free gift of forgiveness and righteousness and eternal life, although I understood very little of it, I knew deep inside that it was true.

Because God loved me, even when I was a sinner and a rebel and a liar, I was captured by his love for me as his adopted, beloved daughter. I gained security as I grew to understand that his own Spirit had come into my life to accompany me, teach me and transform me as long as I am walking on this earth. The truth in his Word, the Bible, began to root out the lies I believed and lived out of.

This renewal didn't happen overnight. I began reading the Bible hungrily, and over the next four or five years my eyes were opened a little more. A very real struggle continued between my old patterns of getting my needs met and the new person--the true self--he was creating. I finally realized that Jesus would never let go of me, even when I turned away and returned, and turned away again. His patient, stubborn love kept drawing me back into his light, until I finally surrendered to follow him out of the shadows and into the freedom and joy he wants for us to fully experience.

For me, the good news of the gospel is not just the promise of heaven or a happier life now--but that you get God Himself. Eternal life has already begun for me because Jesus is always with me, he is renewing my mind, he is removing the remainders of sin that will finally be history, when he takes me away from here to live with him forever in a completed soul and imperishable body.