BC & AC: BEFORE CHRIST & AFTER CHRIST

Besides yourself, dear child of the King, have you ever known someone who was lost but was later found by the Lord Jesus? I have. It was a former co-worker of mine. I believe that she is with Christ now, having died several years ago. At some point in life she’d had an encounter with the living God and had run by faith into Christ’s arms, trusting in His redemptive act on Calvary’s cross. She had begun trusting in ALL He has revealed in His Holy Word. This ostensibly world-weary lady had once been an avowed naysayer, a true mocker and a cynic as it pertained to the things of Christ. Then, after I returned to that agency, following a twelve-year hiatus (to rear my children), I ended up assigned to the same unit as the forementioned woman, and behold, she’d been changed! When
the conversation lent itself to spiritual matters, she was unashamed to humbly declare who her source of righteousness was, and that her Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ had become her Redeemer, Advocate, and Friend, having taken away ALL of her sins!  While it was not my habit to “overhear” others’ conversations in that cubicle-lined office space, I felt compelled to proclaim an audible “AMEN” to her comments, which I one day heard her sharing with someone.

Observing such a changed individual must be what it was like for those in the apostle Paul’s day to be an eye-witness to the profoundly new creation that he became following his encounter with the living Christ on the road to Damascus. [See Acts 9:1-22, chapters 22 and 26]

What changes about you, dear reader, can others attest to or give testimony? Are you examining your pattern of spiritual growth as you reach for the goal of His upward call in Christ?

PRAYER: Dear Father, while it greatly inspires us to see the evidence of changed lives in our midst, we remain thankful that it is not primarily the observations of others that authenticate the changes You’ve effected in us who believe on Christ. Heighten our determination to be true and living “epistles” You’ve redeemed us to be. In Christ’s name, amen!
By Sis. Denise Diggs