I see. Do you remember when the Lord lifted the evil Veil from your eyes so that you could finally see, meaning that you could finally think and act in Holy and Righteous ways? Or, does this sound foreign to you? If you have had a real and genuine Romans 12:2 Transformation, you should have a nice story to tell. Looking forward to it.
I have lots of stories to tell, mostly: how the Lord forgave me for being stupid.
I was always going to church, had a wonderful Christian involved parents and sister. We did intercity work in Spanish Harlem in NYC. At fourteen I was baptized and felt something and went on building a strong spiritual resume marrying a wonderful Christian woman get a minor in Bible, teaching school, scout master, living in the center of the city evangelizing and doing one-on-one teaching.
My single one-day awakening happened this way:
For many years, I experienced and believed Christianity had no real down side. It was a happy, easy and rewarding life, everyone should jump in. It was a fun easy life for me and I had a great resume and wanted to add prison Bible teaching.
I use to teach “we (Christians) all sin lots of times especially lusting and cannot keep from it, but we are constantly being washed by the blood of Christ, so we are without sin in that case.” That was before I met a group of Christians that risked death for themselves and others by sinning, just any sign of not doing what Christ would be doing in that moment could result in being beaten to death. Here is what happened:
I got thrown into (volunteered to substitute teach) with the youth (13-21 age) prisoners program teaching Bible (one hour on Sunday morning to a group of 14 with three other Christians teaching groups of 14) and I was teaching three groups of “Christians”. The first group were guys (“going to school”, it is called), they start out causing trouble and getting thrown in the tank. Then they start increasingly attending the Bible services, carrying their Bible, being nice, eventually being baptized and saying they are Christian. By the time the parole board meets, they have this glowing report showing continued improvement tied to their increased spirituality and are released. These guys still carry weapons, are members of a gang, and every prisoner knows they just “went to school” to get out. The second group were converted before they went to prison (granny conversions), but on their first day they are seen watching raunchy TV, hanging with a loss group, laughing at off colored jokes, they were not always talking about Jesus and were not trying to convert others. On their first day in prison the snitches see this, the snitches talk to the Bulls who then approach these “Christians” saying: “you are not a Christian” (doing everything Christ would do) and make them a slave (often sexual) or at best a gang member. They still come to Bible study on Sunday, so they can tell Granny (who visits them Sunday afternoon) what they learned, but they are slaves (sometimes sexually) to some bull. The third group is fanatical, they stick close to each other, they: study, pray, witness to everyone, and avoid even a hint of insincerity that the snitches could see. They carry no weapons, but step between those that are being beaten especially persecuted. This group had grown over the last 3 years from just a couple of guys to now 42, but it came at a high price. Each convert had on the day he was baptized, given up the protection of his gang membership, turned over his weapons along with all his possessions (the gang owns everything including them), they were beaten if not by the gang they left, then by other gangs looking for payback and then they were watched constantly looking for any sign the snitches might interpret as weakness (anything less than what Christ would do in the situation, would result in a beating and it could lead to death). There is absolutely no privacy and these Christians never wanted to be found alone. They slept in barracks where at least one stayed awake all night praying over the others, so they could sleep without the fear of being smashed in the head in the middle of the night. These guys believed and counted on power from the Holy Spirit, I did not know existed. They come battered and bruised each week hungry for some real meaningful Christ like lesson that goes beyond their group study of 40+hours that week on the same subject, which I could not provide. They mostly helped me with my poor example of Christianity and lack of knowledge and lack of wisdom. They mentored me even though they were only Christian for a few months, but I was a poor disciple and could not keep up with them. I don’t know if I could go through what they went through.
I had many hard nights praying and crying over those young men. I Loved them and empathetically to some degree suffered with them.
They really did not talk about “not sinning”, but what better things they could be doing each and every minute of the day and night. If they did sin, even with their thoughts, they confessed immediately to everyone (all around so the snitches could hear it also), asking for help, prays and ideas on doing better, yet this was not a daily action for everyone.
It is not so much not wanting to sin, but wanting to be a Christ like Christian (witness). This was not done to please the guards because the guards did not like them witnessing to them and the fact others might beat on them caused the guards added work to break up the beatings.
Maybe we do not see the Spirit working in us because we quench Him or are not in situations of really needing Him. Severe persecution brings out the Spirit in those who have the Spirit.
One example of what I learned from them was: “You do not even try to keep from sinning (be on the defensive), but try to be involved in the next minute, in doing something really good (constantly on the offensive) then the Holy Spirit can be involved with you and you keep doing good stuff all day and night and pick it up the next day”. You just do not have time to be involved in any sinning.
At my first time teaching, a non-Christian at the end of my shameful lesson asked me a question I could not answer and a young new convert jumped in and answered for me but first said: “Don’t bother him, he is a newbie” (yet I had been a Christian for 10 years and he had been a Christian less than a few months, yet he was right and I was the babe.)
