As my 20's melted away and my 30's came, God began to take me in a new direction. Marriage and kids had brought a measure of happiness, but deep joy was missing. I had been living as a legalist for quite a while. My relationship with God was fraught with religion. I easily turned my discipleship training into a scheme to make myself feel good about my religious performance and to impress God with my relative righteousness. In my mind, if I kept the rules, then God would love me. But thankfully, God didn't allow me to stay at that place.
My soul was in deep need of spiritual renewal and God met me in my need. Through two godly men, I began to learn a truth that I had either forgotten or never known. I knew that Jesus died-on-the-cross-for-my-sins, but that wasn't good news to me. I had half the Gospel! I had been put back to even with God, and in my mind it was up to me to stay there! Through these two men, I learned that God takes our sin AND covers us in the righteousness of Jesus. When he looks at me, He is pleased, because He sees the righteousness of Jesus. This was and continues to be good news....
