Loved sex. Loved getting drunk. Loved gambling. Loved money and all it could buy. Loved getting my own way. Hated coloured people, especially Aboriginees, Asians, and Indians. Hated loud mouthed Americans. Hated do-gooders. Hated anything I didn’t want to understand or wasn’t like me. Hey, and I was quite happy!
Then I discovered for myself that there was a God.
I began to read the Bible.
The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase.
Romans 5:20f
I began to discover the depth of my bigotry, racial prejudice, the depraved and desperate state I was in. The more I read of God and how man was intended to live on this planet, the more I realised how far I had gone astray. I discovered that what I was, and what I was doing, separated me from God. It was me who had turned away from God and His ways. I had discovered what sin was.
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
Romans 6:20-21
Wow. That was like hitting a brick wall. It hurt. I was not happy.
Then I read:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:6-8
And:
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:22,23
Christ died for me. He paid the my penalty of death for my sin. I accepted what Jesus did for me, I repented and salvation was mine. Jesus is now Lord. Now, not only am I no longer separated from God and that He has given me the gift of eternal life, but also the “benefit I reap leads to holiness” and I am now able to love those I hated and turn from my wicked ways.
I have moved from happiness to Joy!