Friday, December 14th, 2018
One day in late November of this year, when the temperature outside was more like September, I met with Crystal for the third time. Her story sounded like something out of a Greek tragedy – molested, raped, battered, meth addict, children taken away, a series of bad relationships, and fearful of what would happen next.
She had accepted Jesus a couple of years before we met but had distorted thoughts about His role in her life, caused most likely by the meth she gobbled up and the disasters that had swept over her. She pleaded and begged with Jesus to help her in her troubles, but nothing changed. She had been saved, but she hadn’t been transformed into the woman God wanted her to be – dependent on Him and following Him and trusting in Him alone, not in the world or the people surrounding her.
I assigned her Chapter 1 in the gospel of John and then chapters 14, 15, and 16. “Those chapters will tell you who Jesus is and why He came to earth. Then you’ll know who it is you’re following,” I said to her.
When I met with Crystal a week later, she skipped into the conference room and was practically jumping up and down with joy. I became caught up in her enthusiasm and asked, “Who are you, Crystal?”
She cried tears of happiness. “I’ve read the chapters in John that you gave me and I now know who I am. I’m a child of God.” To prove her point, she read John 1:12.
Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.