Life’s New Dimension
I know whom I have believed.
2 Timothy 1:12
Does it work when a man comes, repenting of his sins, to receive Christ by faith? I can only tell you that it worked in my own life. Something did happen to me. I didn’t become perfect, but the direction of my life was changed.
I was reared on a farm in North Carolina, and did not have the best of education. During the Depression period my parents were unable to give me the advantages that young people have today. I grew up in a Christian home, but by the time I was fifteen, I was in full revolt against all religions—against God, the Bible, the church. To make a long story short, one day I decided to commit my life to Jesus Christ. Not to be a clergyman but, in whatever I was to be, to seek the Kingdom of God first.
As a result, I found a new dimension to life. I found a new capacity to love that I had never known before. Just in the matter of race, my attitude toward people of other backgrounds changed remarkably. All of our difficulties are not solved the moment we are converted to Christ, but conversion does mean that we can approach our problems with a new attitude and in a new strength.
I was a poor student until that time, but immediately my grades picked up. I am not suggesting that you should come to Christ in order to get better grades, but I am telling you that the life in Christ works. I have seen it work all over the world. I have seen those converted whom I might classify as intellectuals; but they have to come as children. We say to our children, “Act like grown-ups,” but Jesus said to the grown-ups, “Be like children.” You are not to come to the cross as a doctor of philosophy, nor as a doctor of law, but simply as a human being; and your life can be changed.
Our Father and our God, change my heart and make it fully Yours. Take away my pride, my deceit, my longing for worldliness, my sin. Fill my heart with Your Holy Spirit, Your love, Your gentleness, and Your compassion. Touch me with Your grace and help me to grow in my spiritual life. All in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).