TRANSFORMED LIVES! The Bible is full of people whose lives were transformed when they met Jesus. The book of Acts, chapter 9 tells of Saul, a persecutor of Christians. He hated Christians with all that was in him and hunted them down and jailed them purely for their faith in Christ. Yet on the road to Damascus, Christ met him and asked him the simple question, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” He was changed from Saul to Paul – Paul the Apostle, the great Missionary, the author of half of the New Testament. Saul was transformed from a persecutor of Christians to preacher of the Gospel. Talk about a transformation!
Then there’s the story of the woman at the well in the fourth chapter of John. Have you considered how her life was changed? A woman who needed a man, who couldn’t live without a man in her life. This woman’s need was so strong that she had been through five husbands and was now just living with a man. So embarrassed and ashamed of the life she was living, she chose the unlikely hour of noon, to draw water from the well because she thought no one else would be there at that time. But on that day Jesus came her way and met her at the place of her pain. To her surprise, not only did Jesus talk with her, a woman and a Samaritan, but He changed her life! So much so that she may even have been the first female evangelist – the Bible says she ran to tell the men about Jesus!
And what about the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’ feet? The seventh chapter of Luke tells of this woman; no longer concerned about what people would have to say about her, she enters the room with one thing in mind – get to Jesus. Pouring out her oil on his feet, her tears streaming down, she takes her hair to wipe his feet. Jesus receives her offering of tears- tears full of failure, full of disappointments, full of mistakes, tears of hurt, tears of pain, tears of short comings, he accepts all of them, and he forgives her. Simple as that, FORGIVEN. She is free to move ahead in life – a new creature.
Where were you when Jesus found you? Is He still coming your way? Wherever you are, Jesus can meet you there. For the presence of Christ in our lives does one thing, transforms us into new creatures. So it doesn’t matter where we were, who we were or what we were doing. He transforms our lives from the moment we accept Him as Lord and Savior. He brings us back to God in reconciliation, He cleans us up before God and man, and He fills us up with His Holy Spirit.
