Having Been Translated

    Something happened in me that Sunday morning, something that was hard to explain, but seemed so simple to understand once it revealed itself to me by way of the sermon unfolding itself before me. I had accepted Christ as my savior many years ago.... and many, many times since then, and never was I insincere in doing so. But still something had been lacking in my faith. It was more of a lack of belief in how the truth I had come to know applied to me. If it applied to me. I believed in the crucifixion, resurrection and the ascension and the redeeming power of it, but somehow I was unsure of my status in all of this. Without realizing it I had allowed myself to believe that somehow I had the power to make myself "unsaved", or worse that Christ's death on the cross wasn't enough to absolve me. I didn't mean to think those things of course, but they must have been there under the surface, because I felt the need to not just recommit myself to my faith but to fully go through the process of accepting the Salvation provided to me... over and over, and over again.

    If I remember correctly the topic of the sermon was Luke 13: 22-30... specifically verse 27 where Jesus states "But he will say, 'I do not know where you come from; go away from me all you evildoers!'". The pastor was expounding on the idea that although we are all children on God and known intimately by Him, some will not be recognized when they come knocking on Heaven's door. The reason for that being that in life they had not become translated from the language of the world into the language of Heaven (by way of accepting Christ's gift of salvation). I had never, ever thought of it that way. Once a book is translated into a new language it cannot be untranslated. That act cannot be undone. The book can be burned or otherwise destroyed, but once it's message; it's contents have been known in the new language it cannot simply be erased from the mind of the reader. At the very least it took root in the mind of the translator if no further audience was reached. The only way to break that bond is to re-translate it into something different. An intentional act, in this case to renounce the original belief and confession of salvation and make a new claim.

     This analogy hit home. I understand books, reading and writing has kind of been my "thing". I've always seen people as stories, living novels. It all made sense to me now, the Word had suddenly been translated for me into a language that I understood. My "status" was not in jeopardy. I was now free to move past that initial step of faith into a deeper more personal relationship and understanding.You see it's hard to give your will over to a force greater than yourself when you're not really sure that you've been sealed into it, if that makes any sense. It's also hard to be grateful for a blessing that you're not entirely sure you've actually received. This grave misunderstanding had been such a roadblock to me in ways that I was completely unaware of until that moment. I felt free.

     I researched for some time trying to uncover an international publishing symbol meaning "this text has been translated" but came up with no definitive results. Even so the word had become a part of me; in an instant it seemed to rise up out of the depths of me to the very forefront of my being. A permanent fixture in my identity. I thought on it, prayed on it for several months and this past Sunday I made it a permanent part of my physical presence as well.

 Greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world. - 1 John 4:4

---

---