“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them!”
Revelation 12:10-12 (bolded words mine)
This Sunday, Morgan asked me to do the prayer at the end of the music portion of our time of corporate worship.
I was happy to. It is one of my favorite things to do.
We sang a song that morning with a heart cry to God that goes, “Remind me who You are”.
I began to break down a little, because I know who He has been to me all these long years.
Jesus is the best thing I have ever found. And I knew He wanted me to tell my story.
I stepped up on the stage and I held a mic in my hand and I told hundreds of people my story.
I told how I had hated who I was for most of my life.
I told how I starved myself of food to punish myself for being so fundamentally horrible.
I told how I was unsure about everything, and how I had spent my youth banging on a locked door, hoping to be delivered out of the darkness.
The first time my soon-to-be friend Matt showed me John 17 and told me that I could know God; the moment I heard of God’s love for me, and that He came to set me free; I knew then that everything I had ever wanted was right in front of me.
The Gospel had handed me the keys to that door with my fist prints all over it.
The Word of God washed me clean and set me free as I sought its truth and obeyed God’s commands.
I shared all of this on Sunday.
I stepped off the stage and as the congregation greeted one another, at least seven people came and said something about my testimony being meaningful to them. After church I was inundated with texts, facebook messages, emails, and phone calls from people thanking me for being honest and transparent.
It was an unusual response for a three minute moment.
Many of the people who called and texted already knew my story. It wasn’t new information.
I believe the overwhelming response is evidence that God is able to use the simplest bit of frank transparency to touch the hearts of His children. People are desperate for news that there is hope for their weary hearts to be set free, for evidence that good can overcome evil, and for stories that show God’s grace can liberate our sin-bound souls.
All of this is found in the lives of people who have decided to open the Bible and believe what it says, trust in the declaration of ultimate love we see on the cross, obey His command to take up our own crosses, and walk away from sin.
There are no shortcuts. There is only one path to freedom, and that is the way of Jesus.
Follow Him, face your locked and barred doors, and ask God to give you the keys. Freedom is not a passing dream, it is His will for you.
