Then and Now
I don’t often take the time to go through old family photo albums, but recently I sat down and opened them to share with some of my girlfriends. We giggled and pondered all the phases of styles and seasons one goes through in a 70-plus-year lifespan. After a short time, I closed them and returned them to their designated shelf, but not before holding back the single one of me taken when I was just 5 years old. It was my kindergarten picture.
Once alone, I took time to remember that little girl. She was the innocent one who knew, even then, that Jesus loved her. It was a simple act of acknowledging that she wanted Him in her heart. If He lived there, He would be with her always. That single invitation gave the gospel seed room to grow, and by the time I was 12, I understood the importance of giving Him my life. I had no idea then that my future would be filled with years of taking it back. But God did.
I find it a phenomenal thought that He, being omniscient, would be so ready to walk into that little 5-year-old heart, knowing the same heart at 30 would be so ready to ignore Him for twenty years. There is no doubt that He also saw the 50-year-old heart who desperately wanted Him to come back and restore what sin had destroyed, and in that singular act, the two of us would be ready to build a worthy life that He has predestined for me in eternity past. As it turns out, He never left. He sat patiently as I squirmed through life on my own.
Today, as I stand at the peak of my earthly time and look back over the great swath of life that I have lived, I can say with utmost confidence and enthusiasm that when we read, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6, we can surely believe it.
I look at Him, pinned to His Calvary cross, and realize that the sin He bore that day was all that needed to be paid for. Not some of it, but all of it. And not just for me, but for all who would believe, past, present, and future. The proof of this is Him, not hanging on an old rugged cross or buried in some ancient tomb, but a miracle of miracles, seated at the right hand of the Father as my great High Priest, filled with love, mercy, and endless grace!
Many times in my childhood, I sat in the pew on Sunday morning and sang with the congregation from the Baptist Hymnal, page 193: “There Is Power in the Blood.” I had no idea how profound this truth was. Today, I most certainly do.
Would you be free from the burden of sin? There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood.
Would you o’er evil a victory win? There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.
There is pow’r, pow’r wonder-working pow’r in the precious blood of the Lamb.
Many mock the claim “once saved always saved,” but you’ll never hear that from me. I’m living proof. Oh, believe me, if you had seen me during those twenty desert-wandering years, you might have doubted it. Where was the fruit? Where was the evidence? I’ll tell you where the evidence is: it’s at Calvary. There hung grace. There lives grace, and it is that grace that will lead me home.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before hand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:8-10. Notice the word “should”. Maybe we do, maybe we don’t. But I’ll tell you this, if you don’t walk in them, that won’t undo what God did, but it sure will undo you and those you love the most.
72-year-old me strives to remember that.
