man-hug
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| Life-change. It's when we stop looking inward for meaning and start looking upward for truth. It's what happens when our life intersects with the truth of God. It's the moment that we stop trying to do life our way and begin doing life God's way. It's the moment that we throw our hands up in the air and surrender. It's the moment that we change clothes; we take off our old self and put on Christ. It's the moment we bury who we were (the person I thought I was) and begin a new life (the person I'm supposed to be). I witnessed a man last Friday, deep six who he was. I witnessed that same man become a new creation in Christ Jesus. He decided to stop living for himself and to begin living for God. He gave his life to Jesus and was baptized. The very next day, I witnessed another man on Saturday throw his hands up. He had been watching someone in his life be transformed into the likeness of Christ over the last five months. That person's story of life-change was having an impact on him. He wanted life-change too. His heart was ripe. The soil of his life had been tilled and was ready for the truth of God to be planted in his heart. And it was. Right there on my back porch. That's when we had a man-hug. You know the kind. It's when two grown men only reach half way around the other and try to avoid their facial hair coming together like velcro. And then you get a firm grip on each other's upper arms and hold for 3.7 seconds; testing the firmness of their biceps. And then you look down at the ground and back away from each other. It's a man-hug. And it happened again on Sunday when that same guy had that goofy smile of peacefulness on his face when he came up out of the water. Clean. A new creation in Christ. He was just baptized. That man-hug was a wet one. It was awesome. My shirt dried off later as I drove hope praying for him with the windows down in the General Ki. Life-change. It's what happens when God gets a hold of your heart. It's what happens when we stop resisting Him. It's when we allow Jesus to give us a man-hug. It's when we stop looking inward for meaning and start looking upward for truth. |
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