Radical Transformation

About a week ago, a van went through the front door of my house. The car nearly killed me as I had been walking in and out of that same door several times. The house was and is severely damaged due to the impact and the fact that the car remained on when it was in the house lead to the entire house filling with smoke and causing everything to smell like burnt rubber. It was a brutal experience in which something that was far out of our control drastically changed our circumstances. Yet something amazing happened and it had happened far before this. My family had been radically transformed into a godly household. This incident clearly shook all of us up quite a bit, but we did not get angry or bitter by it. Rather the contrary my family has done its best to show love to the family of the boy who hit the house and to the boy himself. Instead of becoming bitter at our circumstance we have taken this time to serve as a witness of Christ's love and compassion. We have had many people comment on how they don't understand how we can be so calm about the situation, how we can possibly be so forgiving so quickly. My parents simply reply that they are grateful and understand that things could have been worse.

I am truly amazed at my parents and how they have handled the situation. This incident will certainly be a major part of the very near future and will impact many things for a long time to come, yet through it all they maintain a wonderful knowledge of Grace and refuse to allow any bitterness come in. Now the question must be asked is this just their nature or is there something else behind it that is fueling this compassion? The answer is both. You see, there was a time that we certainly would not have handled the situation like this. We would have certainly been bitter and angry and would have thought only of ourselves. Christ's glory would be the furthest thing from our mind. At some point however, we began to give our lives to Christ more and more. It was not an overnight process, but a gradual one filled with struggles and vulnerability. Christ transformed our lives. He gave us a new life, one filled with the knowledge that His glory is to be the number one priority in our lives. Are we always mindful of that or focused on that? Absolutely not. We do however recognize a great change in our lives. We aren't the same and can't possibly go back to what we were.

This is the story of a Christian life. We were once something else. We were once sinners completely lost and need of a savior. God called us to Him and made us new in His image. He took the blame for our sins and paid our debt. In a manner of speaking we were once oranges. We lived as oranges do and were unable to be anything else. Then something happened, we were radically transformed into something else. We became apples. We were no longer the oranges that we were and no matter how hard we try we can never be oranges again. Sure we can act like oranges, but that doesn't change who we are. Eventually our inner character begins to show and it becomes apparent that we are apples. Before we accepted Christ we were sinners. We lived as sinners did and lead lives of sin. Then Christ came into our lives and changed us into those that He has deemed as righteous. Are we always righteous? No. We still sin and we still cling to what we once were, but with Christ we are no longer that. He has claimed us as His own and we can never be anything different than His children. That radical transformation in our lives is the evidence that Christ is in our lives.