STORIES OF GOSPEL TRANSFORMATION

Every Christian essentially has the same story of Gospel Transformation - the Lord’s kindness has brought us to repentance and we have received faith, by grace, to trust in Christ for the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life with God (Ephesians 2:8-9, John 6:44-65, Acts 3:16; 11:18, Philippians 1:29, 2 Peter 1:1, Romans 3:11, Philippians 1:6)! And there’s more… we are filled with the Holy Spirit of God and compelled to live for Him, because of the power He gives us and our love for Him. This is the Gospel, or the Good News of our salvation!

It’s actually difficult to overstate the change that has occurred in the Christian. This conversion (salvation) is described as being “born again” or “born from above” (John 3). The Christian is called a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5) with a “new nature” (Colossians 3), which contains a “heart of flesh” instead of stone (Ezekiel 36) and “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2). A miraculous change has happened to us, at a heart level and we will never be the same.

That said, no Christian comes anywhere close to living up to this new nature perfectly. But if anything has changed in the Christian, their desires have. We have a holy reverence of and a love for God that changes everything. We regret, even hate, our sin. We are compelled to see the world and everyone we meet though spiritual lenses and with eternity in mind. We live for His glory and the good of our neighbor and not primarily for ourselves. And it is all in happy response to all He’s done to rescue and redeem us and make us part of His family!

While every Christian undergoes the same fundamental change, our stories are very different. How we eventually came to see our need for a Savior is different. The circumstances surrounding our faith decision vary wildly. We all enter the faith and learn to follow Jesus from a slightly different angle, which gives each of us a unique emphasis on who God is and how He saves His people. And because of this we hope you are encouraged and taught by our stories of Gospel transformation…