I became a Christian at the age of 26, and for a while I thought I was doing pretty well in living the Christian life. I considered myself a disciple of Jesus because on most days I read God’s word, prayed, shared my faith with those who weren’t yet Christians and avoided obvious sins like sexual immorality and getting drunk.
But over the last 9 or 10 years, it has gradually dawned on me that there is a difference between change brought on by being religious and spiritual transformation.
Religion was easy in the sense that I knew exactly which requirements needed to be met. The more items I checked on the checklist, the better I felt I was doing.
But religion was also very hard because it was based on self-effort and willpower. Being a disciple of Jesus sometimes felt like having taken on a second full-time job on top of my regular job rather than an integrated part of my life.
The motivation to do good works often came from the church environment and what was expected of me rather than from heart convictions. And at some point I ran out of steam.
I have now realised that the foundation for a life of faith is not what I do, but what God has done for me through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. It is not about rule-keeping, but about building an intimate relationship with God.
Knowing all these things is one thing – but putting them into practice is another.
This blog came about because I realised that in my annual reviews I keep writing down the same issues and struggles year after year. It feels I am still missing something. I can often more relate to the Israelites wandering through the desert, with the desert becoming the graveyard of the majority of them, then with the New Testament saints who turned their world upside down because they changed from the inside out when they became Christians.
This blog is my record of my journey from slavery to the freedom of the Promised Land.
I have always kept a journal, and I am hoping that over time I am able to write blogs about the insights I have gained over the last 17 plus years. I am sharing these insights because many friends have said that what I wrote years ago has helped and encouraged them. When they have read out to me what I had written, I could often not recall the words. So I am writing this blog as much as a reminder for myself as for others.
I often say that God is not speaking to me, but the truth is that I am often not listening when He is speaking…
