When I was 14 years old, I prayed a prayer to get “saved,” and for 31 years I lived my life believing I was a Christian. That was my identity. I read the Bible, prayed, went to church and sang in the choir. I tried very hard to live according to the Bible’s teachings. I went to Bible College and learned how to understand the Bible. I have been a Sunday School teacher, a youth leader, a choir director and a preacher.

That religious experience I had as a teenager changed my life, but not in the ways that really mattered. Anxiety, fear and anger continued to rule me. I was living a self-focused life that fueled my anxieties, fed my fears and kept me in a destructive state of frustration and anger that hurt the people I cared about most.

I had what the Bible calls, “a form of godliness,” but did not have the power of God on my life (2 Timothy 3:5). I was calling myself a Christian, but it was a Christianity of my own making. Without realizing it, I had transformed the God of the Bible into an idol of SELF.

The Bible says that “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). To truly have Jesus living in you, YOU have to be dead, in the sense that ALL of your desires, ambitions, goals and rights are secondary to His (Colossians 1:3, Romans Chapter 6). It took me 31 years to realize that I had not really become a “new creature”.

On September 17th 2018, God literally woke me up with this realization. I had been wrestling with God for months over the concept of repentance. I could point to a day when I had admitted I was a sinner (Romans 3:23) and that only God could save me. I knew I had accepted the truth that Jesus died for my sins and was the only way to get to heaven (John 14:6). But I could not honestly say that I had truly come to the end of myself. I had not genuinely yielded to God’s desire to turn me away from sin and self (repentance), to a life that was being transformed, not by my own efforts, but by the Holy Spirit’s work within me. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” (Titus 3:5)

As I lay there in bed that morning, I finally gave up my own efforts to be acceptable to God, and experienced a genuine moment of repentance and faith. This is what the Bible calls being born again. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)

Maybe your story is similar to mine. Are you wrestling with God? Maybe you prayed a prayer as a young person, but can’t see a real change as you look back on your life. Whether you’ve been a churchgoer all your life, or have never set foot in a church before, if you take an honest look at your life and see more of YOU than of God, it may be because you are serving an idol of SELF. Every man, woman and child will answer to God someday for who, or what received their worship. “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27)

If you have questions or are uncertain where you stand with God, I would love to hear from you… John@JohnCLawton.org

You can also go to https://aac-rt.faithlifesites.com/about for more about how to be born again.