A Changed Life

Sometimes I forget how Christ can change, transform really, people's lives. In these days that we see so few people come to Christ it seems, that we forget the power of God in a life that has chosen to surrender to the Lord.

Last week I was doing some study on a famous sermon called The Expulsive Power of a New Affection . This, I discovered, was a famous sermon by 19th-century Scottish preacher Thomas Chalmers. When I say the sermon is famous, I mean that it is reprinted even today in the books of great sermons. More on this sermon in another blog.

When looking for this sermon I ran across a blog titled from Beer to Eternity. It is a personal blog of a guy named Gary Morland. He is a DJ for a Christian radio station in the USA. He is a great writer... fun to read....

As I read... I was caught up in his story of how he came to Christ. Let me give you a taste of what he says in another blog, one connected with his work.
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"I didn't play baseball. I did get drunk -- every day when I walked out of that building [where he used to work long ago] at 3:30 I would stop at a liquor store and get three quarts of beer. I'd drink one on the way home and another when I got there. Then I'd fall asleep, wake up later and drink the third quart. Sometimes it was a six-pack or two, but that was the basic routine.

For twelve years. Every. Day.

That was a lifetime ago. You know how it says Jesus makes you a new creation and the old goes away and the new comes? That's what he did. Totally radical. Another planet radical.

And then a lot of time goes by and you forget more and more of the old planet stuff and then you see a picture and you suddenly flashback to the old planet and feel it right next to the new planet and you see how they're not even in the same solar system. And you go, was I really once a creature on that planet?

So now I sing a new song, which doesn't have a melody yet:

As for me, I was dead in my transgressions and sins,
in which I used to live
gratifying the cravings of my sinful nature
and following its desires and thoughts,
by nature an object of wrath.
But because of his great love for me,
God,
who is rich in mercy,
made me alive with Christ even when I was dead in transgressions—
it is by grace I have been saved."

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Ya!!! His life is a model of "The Expulsive power of a new Affection". A new affection for Jesus and how the is Power in that new Love that can transform us!

Thank you Lord... and help us to NEVER lose sight of our mission to see people fall in love with you... and be changed...

To read more of Gary's life... click here!

-PK