For those of you ladies who have given birth, do you remember what it was like to be pregnant for the first time? Remember how every lady that had been through that experience told you of her excruciating pain and all the terrifying details of labor and delivery? Then, when you actually went through the experience, it was everything they said it would be, but nothing like you expected. There are many other experiences people go through where that same thing applies. That is how it has been with me in both salvation and the 'Christian' life. Everything that God says in His word is true. All that my pastor told me to expect about salvation was true. But, because I had my own thoughts and imaginations, it has been a totally different experience than I expected. I won't go into all the details of what I had expected and imagined, but I do, however, want to share what it has been like to be saved.
I found out that once a person gets saved, reproval of sin begins. The farther I go with God, the more wrong I find with myself. I am beginning to understand what it means to 'walk in the light.' Before I got saved if God did point out anything as sin, I either found ways to justify it or I denied it and ran from God. Now I have to acknowledge the truth and get right. This usually involves some 'dying to self.' That is another phrase I never knew the meaning of before I got saved. I usually gave in to what pleased self more than God or others. Now God requires the cutting away of those fleshly sins that I never really saw before. Until now, I never understood what circumcision of the heart was, although I prayed for it many times before I was saved. I have found that in dying to myself I'm living for Him. By walking in the Light, I see my sin and let God deal with it rather than hiding. It's often very painful and difficult, but who ever said it would be easy? It's nothing like I thought it would be, but everything God said it would be.
- Karen Hill