I only know it happened . . .

When I was a brand-new Christian, a neighbor told me that salvation happens in an instant but, “You will spend the rest of your life trying to figure out what happened.”

Maybe. I remember later sharing my conversion story with a woman in Alaska, she said, “Oh, you just changed yourself.” I knew that was not true, but I could not explain why.

Today’s devotional says that some Christians try to find a natural and reasonable explanation for what God did by His Spirit. This cannot be done. Only God can transform people, taking us from the darkness of this world and bringing us into the kingdom of His Son. How it happens remains mysterious.

But it does happen, and everything changes. I once thought of Jesus as a nice guy. I once thought I could change myself if I tried hard enough. I once thought I could change others if I could perfectly frame my argument. Not a hope. Only God can do those things.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:16–21)

These verses tell a little of what happened. They say that God put my sin on Jesus and His righteousness in me. This was His way of reconciling me to Him and making me His child, even His ambassador. None of this has a logical or scientific explanation. Oddly enough, I don’t need one. He says what He did; I know it happened and am content with that.

If I need more, it is not so much in what happened, but what is supposed to happen because of it. Every Christian is called to live an impossible moral and spiritual life. God can give us an intense desire and a pure heart to live for Him, to glorify Him and tell others about Him but we cannot do it without Him.

Even the desire to live such a life did not come from me; it is a God-thing, motivated by the King of Kings and empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is so incredible. Doing anything in the power of the Holy Spirit is so ‘not me’ that when someone notices and gives comment, I often cannot see what they saw. I only know my own helplessness and dependency on God.

Of course, that flesh or old nature would have me think otherwise, that I can do this myself, boast about it and take the credit. I’m beginning to realize when that happens I was likely doing whatever I was doing in my own strength anyway. That is, when others praise me, they are seeing my personal effort and not the work of God — or they would be praising Him. At any rate, when God does it, I am so aware of my weakness and need for Him that I don’t even realize that He is doing anything through me and am puzzled by the praise.

^^^^^^^^^^

Jesus, I am loving the freedom of believing in You without any need to figure out what You are doing, the how or the why of it. You are totally trustworthy. When I obey, I want You to be praised. I’m not able to do anything without You and am fine with that . . . and I know that even that attitude is Your doing and not mine.