30 Days - an Overview of the Bible in Just Thirty Daysنموونە

How my Life was Changed

There is great power in your story.

John is from Nairobi in Kenya, and this is his story:

My name is John Kia aka ‘OCS’. I was born in the late nineties. I was infected with malaria and my Mum thought I would die, but I’m alive today. When I joined high school, our Dad, who was the one providing for us, married another wife. So now I’m in the street. I had to provide for my family, so I had to steal.

I was called with my friend, someone is delivering a certain bike. I took the bike. There was a police patrol car, so immediately I knew this one was not going to end well. I heard ‘Raise your hands up!’ So the driver stopped the car. He pulled the gun on me, on my head. My hands were up and I prayed to God. I was like ‘God, forgive me all my sins.’ When I opened up my eyes, he had already returned his gun.

For the first time I was like ‘There is a God in heaven!’ I smiled and I told God ‘I’ve been a bad kid, but today God, I’ll never forget you.' When I went home I wanted to be different and now I really needed to change my life.

I had these questions. I really needed to come to church, but it wasn’t easy. If I just enter this church, everyone will be like ‘If this one is in church, then the devil is a Christian.’ That was hurting me because I really needed church.

This person came, he started asking us questions. That’s when I was like, 'This person is going to help me.' This person was Pastor Juma. Pastor Juma was using Alpha to reach us. Pastor Juma changed my mindset. He made me feel like I am still useful and still needed in the world. He made me realise that there was a reason why God created me.

Without Alpha someone like me wouldn’t have another chance. There are so many young people like me who need help. I need to go for them. I need to help them out. I need to help them move on from that kind of dead life. They need to know God. So when I knew Alpha, I knew that Alpha is the best way to do it.

I started Alpha in our church. I just called three guys, but to my surprise, 15 came. I love reaching out to men and Alpha has given me that very best and precious formation of how to do it. I’m so free. I’m so joyful. I feel this peace inside of me.

What a great thing to know God. I appreciate Alpha because it is through Alpha that someone like me got another chance.

Isaiah 6:1-8

In this passage the prophet Isaiah speaks about how God turned his life around in about 736 bc. God revealed to him what was going on around him, and Isaiah describes the state of affairs in Israel in the first five chapters of his book. The people had turned their backs on God. There was corruption, formality in religion, materialism, arrogance, drunkenness and godlessness. God calls him, as he calls you and me, to do something about it by speaking out to our generation. How does this happen?

1. See who God really is

Isaiah tries to describe what he has seen of the majesty, holiness, glory and power of God in language which we may find difficult to relate to. He is using his own words to describe a powerful encounter with the living God.

Now we can see who God really is in the person of Jesus. I first encountered him as an eighteen-year-old atheist. I read about him in the New Testament and it was as if the person of Jesus emerged from the words I was reading and ‘I saw the Lord’.

2. Realise your need

When Isaiah saw the holiness of God he said, ‘Woe to me! I am ruined!’. My sense of sin is related to how close I am to God. The closer I am to the light the more I am aware of the dirt. Isaiah is aware of his own sin. He says, ‘I am a man of unclean lips.’ Also, he realises that he lives among a people of unclean lips, surrounded by sin. We pick up dirt as we walk through the world. We cannot avoid it.

Isaiah has a sense of his own unworthiness and inadequacy. God breaks our hearts as he shows us what we are like. Oscar Wilde wrote: ‘A man’s very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life.’

But God does not leave us there…

3. Experience the mercy of God

Our guilt and shame would destroy us, but God took the initiative and provided the means of our cleansing. He took away Isaiah’s guilt and atoned for his sin (v.6). Now we understand that this is possible through the cross and resurrection of Jesus. In spite of our sin, God loves you and me. Jesus died for us. Experience his forgiveness and his love. You experience this love through the Holy Spirit. The love of God has been poured into your heart by the Holy Spirit who has been given to you.

As we become aware of our own sin, we are humbled.This is the answer to pride. The experience of the love of God is the answer to insecurity. Without Jesus you can do nothing. With him you can say, ‘I can do everything through him…’

The past is dealt with. You do not need to go around loaded with guilt and shame but rather filled with the knowledge of God’s love and mercy.

4. Respond to God’s call

God asked Isaiah the question: ‘I have done all this for you – now will you go for me?’ His whole life was before him. What was he going to do with it? His response was to yield his will. He said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’.

He did not make any excuses. He didn’t say, ‘I am too busy.’ He didn’t offer to do it later, or when he was less tired or had sorted out some problem.

It was an unconditional response. He didn’t say, ‘Send me, I am going that way anyhow’ or ‘Send me, I was planning to do that’ or ‘Send me, I rather like the sound of that idea.’ He said, ‘Send me to do anything you want, Lord.’ That is true commitment and true service. Isaiah gave God a straight ‘yes’. Do the same. You will never have a better opportunity than now.

Isaiah was willing to be useful as a servant and God sent him to speak to the entire nation. As you say to God, ‘Here am I. Send me!’ he will use you as his servant. This may well be in your place of work, with your family or with your neighbours and friends. In due course, it may even be further afield. In that case he will give you clear guidance.

We, unlike Isaiah, are living in the age of the Spirit when the Holy Spirit has come to live in every Christian. If God wanted to do this for Isaiah, how much more will he do it for you?

Have you caught a glimpse of God? Ask God to reveal himself to you: his majesty, holiness, glory and power. When you catch a glimpse of God, you feel compelled to confess your own unworthiness and ask him for his mercy. You experience his forgiveness and the Holy Spirit fills you with the knowledge of his love for you. Offer yourself to his service by saying, ‘Here am I. Send me.’

Prayer

Lord, thank you for your love for me. Thank you that you say to me ‘your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for’. I want to respond today by saying to you: ‘Here am I, send me!’

References

© Nicky Gumbel, 2024

This reading plan is adapted from the book 30 Days by Nicky Gumbel. It is published by Hodder and Stoughton in the UK, and by HarperCollins Christian Publishing in the USA.