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He touched me,
Oh, He touched me
And oh the joy that floods my soul,
Something Happened
And now I know,
He touched me
And made me whole”
Words and music Bill Gaither

John 1:1-3(NIV) "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched, this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ."

We were sitting at lunch with our friends discussing a pastor’s message. He based his text on I John 1 and his main point in the message was that the most powerful and effective evangelistic tool we have is when we intersect our personal story of Jesus with the ancient history of the Bible.

I have grown up thinking the way to tell someone about Jesus was to go straight down the “Romans road.” But so many times the “god of this world” (Satan) has blinded so many people toward the gospel, that it is very difficult for them to take anything “by faith.” 2 Cor. 4:4(KJV) says, “In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which do not believe, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” We all know that Satan is hard at work to keep people's mind blinded to the gospel, we also know that only the Holy Spirit can truly bring someone to conviction that they need Christ, but we are all called to “go tell, ” so how can we do our best to break through to them? The Pastor’s answer was to combine our personal story with the Bible and he then gave his own testimony, “I was a drug addict and an alcoholic for 10 years of my life, and then something happened, I met Jesus, He came into my life and changed me, and I have never turned back to drugs and alcohol and now I stand before you teaching you about Jesus and His power.” Something Happened. II Cor. 5:17 says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. “(NKJV) He said I can't really prove to you without a shadow of a doubt that what the scripture says is true, but I can tell you that I believe every word of the Bible because “Something Happened” to me when I surrendered my life to Him, He made me whole, and I have never been the same since. Something Happened.

I have to say that my story is not one big dramatic event where I was living in addictive sin and God radically changed my life as he did in the pastor’s life. God has continually changed me throughout my life and is still continuing to do so. When I was born into this world, I was blessed to have Christian parents whose lives had been changed by Christ, whose parent's before them had been radically changed by Christ. By faith, my granddaddy was a first generation Christian who went through many hardships and abuses as a child during the Great Depression. He has told us of how he went to church and made the decision to accept Christ and Christ radically changed him and his family's future. By faith my dad, after losing his sweet Christian mother to cancer kept on trusting God and so by faith, my parents followed in their parents footsteps and became Christians and then proceeded to teach me about Him all my life. By faith, at age nine sitting in a revival at our church, sitting by myself because my parents were in the choir, I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit and I asked Jesus into my heart to save me forever…He changed my eternal destiny. By faith, at the age of 16, I felt His call on my life and I surrendered my life to Him…He changed the direction of my life. By faith, at the age of 22, I married a wonderful man of God who had also surrendered his life to Christ and committed to spend the rest of my life with him…. He changed my heart. By faith, at the age of 36, I gave him my fears and my dreams….He changed my purpose and He gave me a new dream and a new purpose to lead others to be worshipers of Him. By faith, at the age of 38, I gave Him my health, and asked Him to take control of my body ...He healed me of cancer. By faith, the more I yield myself to Him, my will, my understanding, my emotions, my dreams, my heartaches, the more He keeps changing me and drawing me closer to Him and the more I see His glory in my life.

Towards the end of our lunch, a man sitting behind us turned to us and said he was trying to work on his computer, but he couldn't get anything done for listening to our conversation because Christ had radically changed his life and he wanted to share his story. He began with telling us he had really messed up his life. He was an alcoholic and wanted in 3 states (he didn’t say for what) and he had lost his wife and children. A friend invited him to church and he went. He said at first, the gospel of Christ scared him to death because he felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit to give his life to Christ and he didn’t know what to do with that. He told his friend to never invite him back because he would not go. The Holy Spirit continued to work on his heart and he could not rest until he went back. He said he could not wait until the end of the service, but came down to the altar during the singing and gave his life to Christ. He continued telling us stories of how God had changed his life, but, long story short, he said “Something Happened” to him when he met Jesus and he was no longer the same.

Christianity is “faith-based” and it takes faith to believe God is who He says He is, who He says He was in the beginning, Who He will continue to be throughout eternity, and who we can become if we just trust in Him. But doesn’t faith surround our lives anyway? Do we not have faith that when we go to work tomorrow, there will be a job there for us to do, that the company will have the money to pay us for the work we do. How about faith that the car we drive will get us to where we need to be, that our children will be safe in the care of others, that the earth will continue to spin, the sun will keep shining, that all the molecules in our bodies will stay together, that we will continue to discover the mysteries of God so that one day we will have cures to diseases such as cancer, that the rivers will run, that one day it will rain again. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen". Hebrews 11:1 Still people find it hard to believe in the “things unseen” but Christ can become real and tangible to someone when they witness or hear about the miracle of “Something Happened” in our lives and we have never been the same because “He made us whole.” We need to share our stories, so tell me how has God changed your life?

Kerri Mullins
Everyday Driven
http://www.everydaydriven.com
http://www.myspace.com/everydaydriven

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