My Life Was Changed

World-famed pianist Arthur Rubenstein took aback prime minister Golda Meir and a national audience once when he professed faith in Jesus Christ over Israeli television. According to a report in the Mount Zion Reporter, the incident took place while Mrs. Meir was interviewing the American-Jewish virtuoso. She asked him to name the "greatest event in your life."

"When I received Yeshua Harnashiach (Jesus the Messiah) into my heart," he replied.
"Since then my life was changed. I have experienced joy and peace ever since."
The report went on to state that at the comment Mrs. Meir leaned back in her chair with an expression of complete surprise!

Donald Deffner, Seasonal Illustrations, Resource, 1992, p. 80 esermons.com

Born Again

A few years ago in a Time Magazine article (June 5, 2000) Mark Leyner, a prolific modern writer out of New Jersey, asked a question: "Can a person really, and I mean fundamentally, change?" Mark Leyner says, No. There is no such animal, he says, as a changed man. "I don't believe in epiphanies, personal growth, midlife crises, or death bed conversions." He's convinced that the assumptions behind psychiatry, prison reform, and religion are all false. That we are who we are through millions of years of Darwinian evolution.

Strangely, he adds that, in addition to evolution, everything his parents did to mold him made him who he is. That seems a bit contradictory but ok. Let's give him that. Evolution and early social influences creates a person. The die is cast. A personality is formed. Irrevocable.

You might find this surprising but I agree with Mark Leyner. You and I cannot change. Even if I had a death bed experience or someone came back from the grave to warn me of the judgment to come, it would not fundamentally change my behavior. I would continue to live as I always have. (Luke 16:30-31).

I think this is Nicodemus' confusion. If you're a Jew you're a Jew. If you're a Gentile you're a gentile. Nothing will ever change that. I'm a grown man Jesus. I can't come out of my mother's womb again and start all over. I can't be born again!

Nicodemus there is the Spirit and it is like wind. You do not know where it has come from and you do not know where it is going. And Nicodemus...so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. God can change you simply by an act of his grace. There is no reason for it having happened and there is no explanation for it's continuance. The wind: you can hear it but you cannot map it's journey. This man, that woman, this old man, this young child has been changed, fundamentally. But, Darwin has no theories to explain this evolution.

The changes that take place in us do not come from this world and our effort. I cannot change. But what Mark the columnist does not understand Paul the apostle does. When the Spirit breaths new life in us it is no longer I who live, but Christ, who lives in me.

Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com

Strangely Warmed

Methodism's John Wesley was already 35 years old when he brought himself into contact with the Moravian missionaries in London. Many years earlier he had finished his studies. He had long ago learned history and philosophy and many languages. He had been ordained a priest years earlier. But now, at age 35, he first discovered his spirit-being "strangely warmed." The message of God's love had penetrated his mind in such a way that - with a third of his earthly life already over - he was now a changed person. That personal experience shaped the remaining two-thirds of his years upon this earth. That is what Jesus talked about when he met with Nicodemus.

Leonard H. Budd, The Spirit's Tether, CSS Publishing Company.

Penney's Change

A young businessman was rushed to a hospital in serious condition. A doctor predicted that he might die. Not a religious man at the time, he did, however, turn on a radio and heard a Christian song being played: "God Will Take Care of You." He said that he couldn't get that song out of his mind. He began to pray, and as he did, he reported a sense of energy flowing in. It was near Christmas, a Sunday morning. He heard a group of nurses having a brief worship service in a nearby room and struggled up out of bed and joined them. While there, he committed his life to Jesus Christ. That man recovered. Thereafter, for the rest of his life, he remained faithful to his commitment. He referred every business and every personal decision to God, was resolute in his ethics, living by the teachings of Jesus. You've heard of this man, who told all of this in a book about his life. His name was J. C. Penney. He too insisted throughout his life that Paul was quite right in promising divine help for those in whom Christ's Spirit lives.

E. Carver McGriff, Lectionary Preaching Workbook: Cycle B, Lima: CSS Publishing.

When the Person Is Right

One rainy Sunday afternoon, a little boy was bored and his father was sleepy. The father decided to create an activity to keep the kid busy. So, he found in the morning newspaper a large map of the world. He took scissors and cut it into a good many irregular shapes like a jigsaw puzzle. Then he said to his son, "See if you can put this puzzle together. And don't disturb me until you're finished." He turned over on the couch, thinking this would occupy the boy for at least an hour. To his amazement, the boy was tapping his shoulder ten minutes later telling him that the job was done. The father saw that every piece of the map had been fitted together perfectly. "How did you do that?" he asked. "It was easy, Dad. There was a picture of a man on the other side. When I got him together right, the world was right."

A person's world can never be right until the person is right, and that requires the miracle of new birth. Don't you dare stop asking God for the experience of new birth until you can shout from the housetops, "Through Jesus Christ, God has fundamentally changed my life!"

Bill Bouknight, Collected Sermons, www.eSermons.com

Think What God Can Do with Our Sins

M. H. Schubert shares the story about a group of fishermen in the Scottish highlands. They gathered for tea and discussed the day's catch. As a waitress set down a cup of tea, a hand accidently knocked it against the wall. It left an ugly stain. One of the guests got up, went to the wall, and began sketching around the stain with a crayon. What emerged was a stag with magnificent antlers. The man was Sir Edwin Landseer, England's foremost painter of animals. If an artist can transform an unsightly stain into a beautiful masterpiece, think what God can do with our sins. He absolves them and, in their place, refashions us toward full maturity.

James Weekley, Tilted Haloes, CSS Publishing Company
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A Change in Control

Last night a friend of mine was talking about his father: he spoke of how, for many years, his father binged out, how his father was a drunkard - a man who when sober was kind and gentle - and when drunk - well he was something else again. He had no control over himself. And this kind and gentle man brought pain and suffering upon others, or at least the force within him did so - the family had to move - to change homes and communities - almost every year - landlords were cheated, employers disappointed, children neglected, friends abandoned - or embarrassed or betrayed.

And this continued on until one day, after taking his children to Sunday School for a period of time, after witnessing the faith of others and what it did for them, he accepted Jesus into his life. He asked God to take control, to guide his actions and save him from his sins and from the power of sin. And then things changed; debts still had to be paid, amends still had to be made, mistakes still occurred. But the inner man -the man that God made - was set free to grow and mature. No more booze, a lot more prayer. And the love and kindness of the man that could be glimpsed before - in the moments of sobriety - became apparent to all - for days, weeks, and finally years on end. The children who were still living at home stopped fearing what would happen next - they began to look forward to being with their father - they began to develop their own faith in God - a faith that still guides them to this day. This man, this father, this husband, experience a change in control - he went from being in the control of the devil to being in the control of God, and the result was the renewal of his inner nature, and in the end, when his earthly tent was destroyed, the result was a building from God - a house not made with hands - eternal in the heavens..

Richard J. Fairchild, Even Though....

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