Wednesday, May 14: Check out my review of Finding Purpose in Narnia: Journey with Prince Caspian. The Prince Caspian movie trailer is awesome. Click on the link at the end of the review.
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10:48 a.m. PT: Becoming a Christian produced profound changes in me. One of them was seeing people clearly for the first time, especially fellow believers.
As I read about the lives of the disciples and the apostles, I experienced a transcendent awe that words can’t describe. I, La Shawn Barber, born 2,000 years after the fact, worshiped the same God as those men and women. They shared the same Gospel and tried to impart the same truths about the person of Jesus Christ, his sinlessness, his sacrifice, and his deity. And they, too, struggled to live a life that glorifies him.
I was so amazed by the extent that Christ changed my heart. Strangers who professed Christ suddenly seemed familiar. No matter where they were from or what color their skin or what they did for a living or…whatever, what we had in common dwarfed the differences between us. I’m getting the same feeling all over again as I listen to Christian music, which comes in many forms. There’s traditional gospel, country, acoustic, punk, rock, alternative rock, hard rock — every genre and style imaginable. People are sharing the Gospel and setting it to music. They’re signed to major labels, independent labels, and no labels.
The body of Christ is huge. As I said, mere words can’t describe the spiritual awakening of becoming part of a body that believes in the living God. The Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians: “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
It’s profoundly simple, isn’t it? We are Abraham’s spiritual seed, and our race, sex, or nationality does not set us apart from one another or from Christ spiritually. It’s one thing to read and write about that passage. It’s quite another to see it in the context of the whole planet and to live it every day in our own corner of the world.
Christians, what, if anything, amazed or surprised you (about yourself and/or others) when you first became a believer?
Addendum: One person answered the question on my Facebook wall. You may do so as well, but I think you have to “friend” me first.
I must reproduce Jacqueline Harvey’s Facebook comment:
“I was surprised at how everything I thought I was giving up in surrendering my life to Christ was instead returned to me 100 fold. I thought I was giving up my freedom, my dreams. Instead I found more freedom that I knew existed and that the dreams I thought I had were so small compared to what God had for me. 
”
Part of my problem (which has a lot to do with my excessive pride) is that I’m holding on to I-don’t-know-what because I’m afaid I’ll have to give it up. Let go! I’m almost certain my rag-tag dreams pale compared to what God has in mind.
By the way, my updates on Twitter ain’t all that exciting, but if you want to follow…
