What Just Happened to Me?

You are going to have a hard time believing all of this! If you prayed to receive Jesus as your Savior, then God your Father in heaven has been showering you with some very astounding gifts. You may already be aware of some of them, but most were taking place under the radar. It takes “gospel glasses” to see them. Good thing we’ve got a spare pair…

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! Matthew 7:11

All scripture citations are from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise noted.

Some of This You Don't Need to Be Told

You know better than anyone the power of liberation you felt, or sensed, or realized, or in some way experienced when you first became a believer in Jesus. What was the key note for you?

• • That your sins were forgiven?
  • That you realized you would be going to heaven?
  • That a huge burden was lifted?
  • That you suddenly felt the love of God or the peace that passes understanding?
  • That you discovered that Jesus is real, that He is Alive and that He is Lord?

Some people even have visions, hear the voice of God, and receive immediate healing and other astounding supernatural happenings. These are the “ordinary” things that happen to new believers in the realm of experience. You will soon learn (if you haven't already) that personal experience is not the main way that we discover reality, nor is it the final arbiter of truth. We go to God’s written Word, the Bible, to find out what's really real and what's really going on. This isn't the way that comes most naturally to us. From infancy on we have been doing a lot of our learning through four main avenues:

• • The five senses
  • The opinions of other people
  • Our own experiences
  • Our own understanding

Those four powerful ways of learning are not fool proof, since even "fools" are guided by these same things. Now that we have encountered the Lord, it should be obvious that everything has to pass through His perspective and His understanding to become worthy of our belief and trust. The Bible reveals God’s truth to us. Knowing Jesus calls everything else we think we know into question: He alone is Lord.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ … that I may know him. Philippians 3:7-8, 10[1]

Our experience of conversion launches a transformation within us, but those changes will only penetrate deeply if we allow God's perspective—coming to us through the Bible—to challenge or confirm everything our senses "tell" us, everything people tell us, everything we experience, or whatever we may have developed as our own understanding.

What God Did Behind the Scenes

Now, it's time to look behind the curtain — on the other side of the “veil” of time and space. What just happened? Our Father says through His Word that many things happened in the moment of our conversion that we had no way of truly experiencing. See What is the new birth? for a fuller treatment of these twelve “hidden” gifts.

1) You were spiritually dead; now you are alive in Christ.[2]
2) You have been sealed to God.[3]
3) You received a heart transplant.[4]
4) You were “dead” in your trespasses and sins; now you are alive and free.[5]
5) You have been “justified.”[6]
6) You have been liberated.[7]
7) You were blind; now faith has opened your eyes.[8]
8) The Image of God has been restored to you.[9]
9) You have been “reborn” as a new creation.[10]
10) You are now a child of God in the family of God.[11]
11) You have been raised and are now seated with Christ in heavenly places.[12]
12) You are “in Christ” and He is in you.[13]

Believe it or not, there’s more! The gifts of God are too numerous to enumerate, which makes searching things out in His Word an adventure. Walking with God is like a treasure hunt with the clues scattered all over scripture.

What to Do with Your Experiences

Treasure them in your heart. Never forget what God gave you in those moments! An enemy is sure to come around and try to get you to question what you were given, or doubt what you were shown. He is a thief and will seek to steal even your most powerful spiritual moments if he can.[14] The Lord instructed the Israelites to set up memorial stones so that they would never forget their encounters with God or lose sight of what He did to rescue them in key moments of their journey. Be sure you do the same: Rehearse the key elements of what you have learned to engrave it upon your heart; take notes on day and time; tell others about your encounter with Christ; and keep a record of things in a journal of some kind.

These moments of encounter—and we hope you will have many more—are not the building blocks of your spiritual understanding. For that you will need to assemble scriptural knowledge, piece by piece, into a framework that makes sense of all you've been through, but which doesn't contradict the Bible or any basic Christian truths. God's Word is Truth according to no less of an authority than Jesus Himself.[15] We bring everything to the scriptures to make sure it lines up with God's revealed Word. Even powerful spiritual experiences must "bend the knee" and submit to the Light of the eternal Word to be properly understood and interpreted.

Experiences Are for Devotion, Not Doctrine

Experiences are not the stuff doctrine is made of, but they are the great builders of your confidence. You will have plenty of need of confidence in the truths you have been shown and will be learning. This is a life of faith and trust — we literally "bet" our lives on the truth![16] So, if your handle on the truth is shaky, your walk will become wobbly.  Right now, if you are experiencing the "glow" of a first encounter, you might be tempted to think, "I could never question this. I will never doubt God again. This is just too real!"

Certainly, fresh experience drowns out all else. But what will happen when you get down the road and you begin to have other experiences, such as unexpected times of stress and life pressures, or perplexing times when God seems to be allowing the exact opposite of what you expected, or times when today's feelings have "cooled off" and the enemy is pressing you with feelings of hurt, fear, or other strong temptations? In such times of trial, we hold on to two things: as much Bible truth as we can; and the memory of what we were shown and knew of God in the past. We put those two great anchors together with lots of prayer and stand fast.[17] When we do that we always get through the storm to the other side.

Looks like we are starting to talk about the journey of faith more than its beginning. That must mean it’s time to make sure you’ve got your "Quick Start" Guide and your "Starter Kit" prepared for setting out on the Lord’s highway.[18]

Keep Growing!

A "Quick Start" Guide  Every power tool comes with one of these nowadays and you’ve just been entrusted with some of the most powerful tools in the universe: the Word of God, the Name of Jesus, the indwelling Spirit, the righteousness of Christ. You could be “armed and dangerous” as a warrior for the Lord, but first you’ve got to figure out how the thing works.

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