How Does Sanctification Work? by David Powlison

Author:David Powlison [Powlison, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012000/REL023000/REL050000
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2017-05-11T15:00:00+00:00

7

My Story (1)

We began this book by considering the last lines of John’s Gospel and all the other books that might be written about what Jesus has done. We have consolidated our thinking by identifying the factors that come into play as we change. Now let’s look at some of those other stories in this and the following chapters.

Of all the possible books telling what Jesus does, the book I know best is the one I am living. What I will say of my experience is necessarily and intentionally idiosyncratic—yet there are common themes that no doubt will resonate with readers. I think you will find both the idiosyncrasy and the commonality helpful. It is freeing to realize that your life, like mine, does not happen in boilerplate. You and I are not clones of anyone else. Every particular of your story will be different from mine—yet at the thematic level there are deep continuities between us. The kinds of things I struggle with are analogous to the kinds of things you struggle with. The ways Jesus meets me are analogous to the ways he meets you. Analogous, but not identical. God seems to love variety. You and I do not reduce to a category. Our Father is raising children, and every child I’ve ever known is unique. You cannot live someone else’s story.

In this chapter and the next I will tell stories that have been touchpoints in my own Christian experience. In each story you will notice how all five factors are present and operating to bring change for the good. Each story has a somewhat different quality. Different situational variables come into play. Different personal issues are at stake. God intervenes in different ways. Different truths prove salient. Different people help in a variety of ways.

August 31, 1975

I came to Christian faith when I was twenty-five years old. My conversion was dramatic. In high school I had become preoccupied with existential questions: What lasts? What matters? What is meaningful? Who am I? Four lines of development gave force and shape to the questions and answers.

First, in my teens I became entirely estranged from the nominal, mainline version of churchgoing in which I had been raised. I never heard that Jesus Christ was anything more than a moral example of a man who did a lot of good. Christianity, as I experienced it, seemed like a polite veneer for people who didn’t want to face hard realities.

Second, during those same years, I was immediately confronted with death and depravity: bullying (of me and others), the murder of a classmate, suicidal friends, exposure to pornography, people self-immolating on drugs. I was a passenger in a car that killed a man as he walked down a dark country road. I can still see his face—he turned toward our headlights in the last seconds, and I looked into his eyes as we hit him.

And I sat at my grandfather’s bedside after he had a serious stroke. He was rummaging through his achievements, relationships, aspirations, and travels.

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