Another powerful testimony to the truth of the Christian Gospel is the fact that millions of people's lives have been changed radically by the power of Christ. Alcoholics have been delivered, drug dependencies have been cured, cowards have found courage, and selfish people have found new meaning in selfless devotion to others and to Christ. People have found new peace and joy as a result of giving their lives to Jesus Christ. He has helped them as they have given Him Lordship, and He has delivered them from their bad attitudes and habits, things which they had not been able to change by the use of their own volition.
We have already seen how the lives of the early Christians were changed after the resurrection. The cowardly, discouraged followers of Jesus Christ were transformed to the extent that they were able to turn the world upside down in their witness for Christ. Although Peter denied Him, and all of His disciples forsook Him and fled, most of them eventually gave their lives as Christian martyrs. The same pattern is observable throughout all of Christian History.
The changes wrought by Jesus Christ in peoples' lives involve a turning to honesty, integrity, and morality. These changes are very surprising; sometimes they are so strartling as to merit publicity in the secular news media. This was the case, for example, for a thief who repented in 1974, and who was the subject of a news article on front page of the September 18, 1974 Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, entitled "Thief Repents and Recycles":
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP)--Kevin Copley, 14, walked out of his house yesterday and found his bicycle, stolen from him last February.Attached was a note saying, "Since I've stolen your bicycle I received a conviction to return it when I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior. I am truly sorry. But I asked for forgiveness and God gave it to me. Since He forgave me for my sins, He can forgive you for all your sins. Trust Him."
It was signed, "A born-again believer."
Copley said the bicycle was unscratched and undamaged and in as good condition as when he received it on Christmas Day 1973.
The power of Jesus Christ to change lives can also be seen in the effect that His Word has upon those who read it carefully. Eric Booth, the well-known and richly experienced New York actor, came to Christ as a result of studying his lines for the play, "St. Mark's Gospel," directed by British actor Alec McCowen, in which Booth was to recite the entire King James version of the book of Mark at a three-week engagement at the World Playhouse in Chicago. He said:
I came to this from a completely secular point of view. I suppose that sounds like blasphemy to the devout, but in this case I believe it's the best way to approach the work. I have no ax to grind. I'm not a preacher. I'm not an evangelist. All I want to do is give the audience the story. And then it's up to them.At first, it was like learning the lines to any play--just plain hard work and very little emotional response. But then I began to see that the simple and direct things Jesus said are really true for me.
. . . But now I have this gut-level feeling that all these things happened. I don't know how, and I don't understand it, but now somehow I believe it all took place just as it was described. And so I live with something beyond my understanding.1
A similar thing happened for McCowen, the director, who said that learning the Gospel of Mark was a "revelation of an extraordinary man, of extraordinary events, of extraordinary hope. . . Whether or not you are a believer, it is impossible to study St. Mark carefully and not know--without any shadow of doubt--that something amazing happened in Galilee 2,000 years ago."2
1 Bruce Buursma, "One-man Gospel Play a Revelation For Actor," Chicago Tribune, January 20, 1981, Tempo section, pp. 1, 6.
2 Ibid., p. 6.
