“Alive!”
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“For God so greatly loved ME, that He gave His only Son, that if I believed in Him, I wouldn’t perish but have eternal life.” Jn 3:16
How do you pick a favorite scene when a two-hour movie has you smiling, laughing, and crying all the way through?
We were in Florida in February when Jesus Revolution hit the theatres. We went opening day.
My favorite scene …
opens on a sunny, California day, with a crowd of passionate hippy believers clapping and worshipping on the rocky, hillside of the Pacific Ocean cove. With so many coming to Jesus, many weekend afternoons were spent there inviting new believers into the water to take the next step of their faith in baptism.
17-year-old Kathy went first. Walking into the water, with a bright smile, she backed into the pastor’s arms as he invited her to proclaim Jesus as her Lord and gently immersed her in the water.
Beaming as she came back to shore, her boyfriend, Greg, asked, “How was it?”
With tears, she responded, “You’ll see!”
Then Greg reluctantly walked in. He’d been disappointed so many times. Was this just another high or would life with Jesus be different?
As Lonnie asked him if he was ready to give his life to Jesus, still battling doubts, he said, “I guess so.” Lonnie plunged him in. Under the water, something mysterious happened.
Coming up, with his face full of joy, he grabbed Lonnie in a huge embrace. Walking back to shore, Kathy returned his question, “How do you feel?”
“Alive!”
Truer words have never been spoken.
My story …
It was 1981. I was a kid growing up in a typical middle-class family. I had everything I could want or need. I went to private school and was reasonably popular. But, behind the scenes, our family had just fallen apart. Six months earlier, after years of alcoholism, my dad had died of an accidental alcohol overdose. My mom, two sisters, and I were reeling, trying to find our new normal.
As a young girl of 13, living through that kind of mess without a strong anchor of faith, I was on the verge of making all kinds of horrible decisions; opening myself to everything the world had to offer; boys, drugs, etc.
When God sent this teeny bopper boyfriend to invite me to his church youth group. Being a boy crazy young girl, it wouldn’t matter where this handsome young man asked me to go. The answer was “Yes!”
There, for the first time, I saw people praying like they meant it, worshipping with all their hearts and talking about having a “relationship with Jesus”. I had never heard of that before. I don’t think my ears had been open to anything about God before. When they offered me this opportunity as well, there was no question, I was in!
God came looking for me when I didn’t even realize he existed.
Watching the baptism scene reminded me of when I was the one standing on the shore; in 1981 at my first church picnic. It was a good, old “potluck” with crockpots, and 13 X 9 casserole dishes filled with dump cakes, meatballs, and homemade macaroni and cheese. Enjoying a perfect summer day, chatting, throwing the football with kids running through the sand, and splashing in the water.
After lunch, the announcement to head down to the beach for baptisms. An opportunity, instead of being baptized in a big metal bathtub in the front of the church to be baptized Jesus-style, in a real, live lake!
I was standing on the shore with a dear friend “Fran”, a godly father-like figure who the Lord had given a soft spot for this newly “saved” young girl who had just lost her dad. Fran owned a car repair shop in town. He and his wife loved God with all their heart and had been discipling me at their weekly home, bible study.
Standing there with Fran as he excitedly talked about how fabulous this was, all these people coming to Jesus and getting baptized. He said to me, “Have you been baptized, yet?”
“No. Not really. Maybe at church when I was a baby,” I said.
Grabbing my arm with his face glowing, already heading towards the water, he said, “You gotta get baptized!”
I think he was more excited than I was because he knew what it meant; what I was missing.
As a shy, 13-year-old who was just figuring out which way was up, I was apprehensive and scared. But I took his word for it. In, I went.
“Alive!” …
was what Greg Laurie said about how he felt after he asked the Lord to come into his life. I felt the same way. It was the strangest thing, when I invited Jesus to come in, I felt a weight lift off my heart. I didn’t even know I had a weight on my heart. I mean, how much sin could a 13-year-old shy girl be carrying?
The next day walking to school with my sister, Kelli, in our private school uniforms, I couldn’t help but tell her what had happened.
“Kel, I’m different!”, I gushed. I told her all about Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, and the joy I felt. I still remember my classmates puzzled looks as I fanatically told everyone l could all day long.
That was the day I came to life. Literally. When they say, salvation is like being “born again”, it was as if my heart started beating that day. Like in the old days when the tv screen would turn to “snow” at midnight, it felt like I had been walking around and the screen of my life was all snow. Until that day, when the programs started playing.
For the first time, I was “Alive!”
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Here on this Easter weekend, with Jesus making a way for us to come to life, I wonder, what was your experience of first coming to Him?
~ Lori