So we have seen how Jesus took on the Empire of Rome and how he took on his own people. Now I want to give you a look into how Jesus took on me. I’m going to go ahead and ruin the end for you…he won!
I had a pretty ordinary life growing up. I came from a good Christian home. I went to “Church” all my life. I had good family and good friends. I became a “Christian” when I was 11 years old. But this is not when I became a Christ-Follower (more about that later). I did all the things a good Christian boy is suppose to do, like lead singing on Sunday, serve at the Lord’s table, etc. I was actively involved in my youth group. Like I said pretty normal life.
But then I went off to college and like so many, things got a little crazy. I went to a Christian college (which doesn’t actually protect you by the way) and began living a life of hypocrisy. I started having my doubts about “religion” and even some doubts about who God truly was. I began to go to more and more parties and do more and more stupid things. I stopped doing all the things that a “good Christian boy” should do. I stopped being a part of Christ’s Church and began to go down a dark and disastrous path.
It was during this time that God began to work His will in my life and He did it through a few different people. First, He moved through one of my teachers. I was slacking in my studies. School had always come easy for me, but I was skipping a lot of classes, which is frowned upon! I had skipped one of my classes, “Life of Christ”, so much that the teacher was going to have to fail me. I remember sitting in my teachers office. He told me, “Justin you passed all my tests, but I am going to have to fail you for missing my class too many times.” Then he said something I will never forget. He said, “Justin I have been watching you. You need to know something. You know your Bible, but you don’t know Jesus! You need to discover Him!” At the time what he said just made me mad. But as the days and weeks passed his words began to eat away at me.
Next God used my best friend Jonathan to work in my life. Jonathan is one of those guys that you look at and you truly see Jesus in him. You can sense he has a relationship with and an understanding of Jesus that you truly want. Jonathan and I have gone through many hard times together and have always come out stronger in the end. Jonathan has always wanted to see me reach my potential and he helped instill in me the desire to be the best for myself and for my friends.
Finally, God used my wife, Jennifer, to change me for the better. When you see Jennifer you see the heart of God. You would think it would just take that for me to change and be the man of God I was created to be. But not for this stubborn guy! I needed to fall first. And fall I did…hard! Jennifer stuck with me in some pretty hard times and saw the best in me. She saw the man of God I wanted to be and could be.
Through all my times of questioning and doubting, I kept wanting to look to other people for the solution. But there was no solution. Because when God causes you to have “Spiritual Vertigo” there is only one person that can bring you out of it…God! I knew things in the Church were not always right, but instead of helping be the solution, I complained about the problem. Any of you do that? I stopped going to church because I wasn’t happy, instead of becoming the Church and leading a revolution of Christ-Followers to make a difference in this world. That is why I said earlier I became a Christian at 11. I was baptized into Christ at 11. But I didn’t truly start following Christ until much later, when I committed myself to the work that God had in store for me.
Jesus took all my questions and wrapped them into a question of his own, “Do you trust me? Then follow me!” Obviously there is more to this story, but I couldn’t fit it all in this blog! But the basic thing I want you to know is, when I went to war with Jesus, he won! He broke me down into pieces and then built me back up again. I’m still messed up! I still make mistakes! I still have questions! But ever since Jesus rocked my world I have been on a mission to discover what a relationship with Him looks like and how to teach others to get it as well.
Jesus works within our world, within our nation, within our families, within us. He loves us so much he is willing to shake our world apart so that we can see him more clearly. Because it is only when we have our knowledge removed and we are broken down to a mere child that we can truly see and begin to learn. We become completely dependent on Jesus.
This is where this series ends. May you find peace in your relationship with Jesus Christ. And if you don’t, may He send you down a crazy spiral that shakes you to the core. May he rock your world and make you question everything you ever thought you knew. May he give you “hSpiritual Vertigo”.
Thanks for listening!
Justin Cherry 