I am so glad that I accepted Christ as Savior while I was still a child. I understood just enough to know that I needed Jesus to save my soul and that I wanted to be in Heaven one day with Him. But it was a learning process of many years filled with a lot of rebellion before I completely yielded myself to Him as Lord. I just didn’t understand how deep and how wide God’s love for me really was and until I came to the end of myself I didn’t know how badly I needed His grace.
Before God’s grace can be truly comprehended by us, we must be real with ourselves. If we don’t see our sin for what it is then we will never understand our need for salvation nor will we grasp how good God really is.
Understanding is needed. Wisdom is required. A frank inspection of the self at the prompting of the Holy Spirit will help us see exactly who we are and why we desperately need the Lord.
This is a frightening process and I do not make light of it. I think most of us realize that we have some flaws and make some mistakes but actually looking into our own souls and seeing the depth of the darkness there requires God’s help and more than a little courage. And it usually doesn’t happen until we our faced with a crisis so overwhelming that we have no choice but to stop and ask ourselves “Why?” “What am I?” “What have I done?”
God will lead us to that place, as He did with me, where we truly are at the end of ourselves. We will finally glimpse all that the self is capable of and how shallow and small it really is in comparison to our creator God. Only when we are well and truly tired of “self” and want God more than anything else will He finally be able to pick up the mess that we have made and begin to form us into something beautiful.
In some way and at some time every person who truly desires to follow Christ must come to this point and go through exactly the same thing. In my own life it is the absolute lowest point and the absolute highest mountain all at the same time. What began as a broken and angry man was transformed into one who was humbled but full of peace about the present, hope for the future and a greater love for God than I have ever known. God met me and showed me His grace contrasted against my sin and I, as long as I live, will never forget what that looked like.