Why A Revelation of Jesus Changes Everything

Are you exhausted from trying to get it all right? If so, this is gonna help you. It’s a dialogue of a recent conversation between a friend and myself and this friend, who has also been exhausted, just happens to be receiving a revelation of Jesus!

My Friend:

Jesus has really been doing a work in me!! I did not realize how much I was still under condemnation and thoughts of guilt and shame. Without realizing it I was still trying to work to show Him how much I loved Him which could be a reason why He’s wanting me to rest and just enjoy His love. I feel like I’ve been an onion lately and He just keeps peeling back layers showing me His incredible love. I cry and cry and cry. I have probably cried more in the last couple months than I have in years combined!!

Yesterday heading to church I was crying in the car before I even got there and I think I went through an entire box of tissues while listening to my pastor. 

Has this ever happened to you?

Me:

THANK YOU JESUS for what you’re doing in my friend’s life!!!!! Yes, this same thing happened to me in 2012 when I received a revelation of the Fathers love and grace. Oh my gosh, I cried so much letting go of all the years of striving, works, self-effort, depending on my own strength and willpower, etc.

This is what’s happening to you, my friend and I am soooooo excited about it!

Thank you for sharing this with me. I will be praying for you and girl, am I ever excited! REST is the most productive way to live!

By this point I’m so thrilled for my friend and how this is going to change her life that I’m nearly hyperventilating. I stopped texting for a minute and then texted her this:

Your going to be forever changed and let me tell you, the crying may never stop. I feel so tenderly and completely loved by God now that I cry very easily.

I stopped texting again, trying to calm down, then texted her this:

Oh girl, now that this is happening, look out. Just watch God unfold your destiny as you go forward in a complete state of rest. I can’t wait to be there cheering you on!

My Friend:

Honestly I thought I had received a revelation years ago when I read such and such book. I believe I might have received a fraction or at least head knowledge but I didn’t allow it to change my heart. I still tried to earn. I was still operating in self effort. I had unattainable goals for me AND my family and was making everyone miserable trying to make us all live up to them. It was exhausting and miserable. Jesus is showing me all of this!!! 

You see, my friend had not yet come to the end of herself when she read the book she mentioned. God was just lovingly and patiently waiting for her to come to that place of giving up on her own self-efforts and stop depending on her own self-righteousness before she could truly see grace. This is the same thing that has to happen with each of us before we can receive a grace revelation!

Back to my friend’s story:

I used to say all day everyday “I love you Jesus” But just very recently I was saying it and He spoke to my heart and said I want you to start saying “Jesus You love me”.  Man did the tears flow! I honestly have never even fractionally understood how much I’m loved. 

When I was in my early 20s and got pregnant out of wedlock I was told I would end up being nothing. I found something I was very good at and made it who I was and where I put the value of my worth without realizing it. If I could do good in real estate that meant that I was worthy and not a failure. It made me miserable. As long as my family turned out OK I didn’t fail as a mom. As long as I did something good with my home I didn’t fail God in what He gave me. This was constantly my mentality.

I became the top at everything I did because only when I was number one did I feel worthy. If I became number two at anything I didn’t do good enough. Jesus started giving me a revelation of this two years ago. He told me to stop watching my numbers with the work I did, and HE gave me the best numbers I’ve had in 27 years of doing this. But the funny thing is I’m super happy and I am able to show people that God blesses and gives favor to His children but I wasn’t allowing this same truth to define me.. it was wearing me out living up to this mentality. The enemy put so much condemnation and guilt on me and would remind me of my past and make me feel like I needed to do more in order to earn all that was given to me.

Jesus has been breaking so much off which is why I have been crying and crying. I believe a couple months ago when I called you and was having the anxiety attacks, the enemy was trying to fight with everything he had for me not to get this revelation.

Me:

Your text messages this morning have made my whole week! Your story sounds so familiar to mine and so many others! Thank you again for sharing. Honestly, God may be leading me to take our texting dialogue here and write a blog post with it because all we want to do is help others see Jesus like we’re now seeing Jesus. It’s all about Him and pointing people to Him!

Friend, I have a question for you. Can you relate to my friend’s story?

What you just read in this dialogue is not a one time scenario. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to in the past 8 years since I first came into a revelation of God’s grace that were at the very end of their rope and ready to throw in the towel on Christianity because like I did for over three decades, they were trying to live their life in their own strength, ability, willpower and discipline, leaving Jesus and His resurrection life out of the equation. None of us did it on purpose. We knew our life wasn’t working but we just thought, “Well, I guess I’m just suppose to try harder. What I’m doing really isn’t working. It’s not setting me free so I need to try harder.”

But that was the wrong answer and we found that out the day we came to the end of ourselves.

I have another friend who had been a Christian for many, many years as well and she sat in a restaurant with her friend in April of 2019 and told her, “I’ve come to the place where I’ve decided I’m incapable of love. I’m a terrible wife and a terrible mom and I just don’t have the capacity to love.”

And do you know what her friend told her? She said, “That’s right, you’re not capable. None of us are apart from Jesus.”

That answer was exactly what she needed to hear. When she was telling me this story she said, “I thought it was just me and there was something wrong with me like I was flawed until she said such a simple thing.”

This reminds me of the day of the start of my grace revelation when the Father spoke to my heart and said, “Sandra, I love you because you’re my daughter, not because of anything you do for me.” Boy did the light bulb come on that day!

Back to my friend’s story:

After she began to come into this wonderful, life transforming revelation she told me the biggest lie that she believed for so many years was that every time she made a mistake she believed she had to live separated from God until she got herself cleaned up at which point she could then come into His presence again. She now understands that nothing she does will ever separate her from God’s love. This has caused her to relax and actually enjoy her relationship with God.

I just this week asked her the following question: 

How do you feel your life has changed since you came into a revelation of God’s grace?

“The biggest change for me is freedom—freedom from the constant thoughts of my failures, not being good enough, not measuring up, not being a good Christian etc. I used to lay awake at night thinking about every regret I had for my entire life —and it was just about everything I’d ever said or done. Now I sleep soundly and rarely have these thoughts.

Also, when I do fall back into an old habit I don’t beat myself up over it but just move on knowing that God still loves me just the same—even if I never figure it out completely.

In addition, I read the scripture differently. For example, I used to read 1 Corinthians 13 – the love chapter – as a list of impossible things to do and if I didn’t do them I was not loving. Now I read that chapter as who Jesus is and what He does and since He is in us we are that too.

Finally, I’d say I spend much more time throughout the day thinking about who Jesus is and what He did rather than who I am not and what I haven’t done.”

Wow! Will you look at that. Both of these friends have gone from being self-conscious and sin-conscious to being Jesus-conscious and they are experiencing victory in their lives, in their emotions and in their minds as a result! I hope these stories have inspired you as much as they have me!

Friends, let’s let this stunningly beautiful passage of scripture be our goal:

⁷ Yet all of the accomplishments that I once took credit for, I’ve now forsaken them and I regard it all as nothing compared to the delight of experiencing Jesus Christ as my Lord! ⁸ To truly know him meant letting go of everything from my past and throwing all my boasting on the garbage heap. It’s all like a pile of manure to me now, so that I may be enriched in the reality of knowing Jesus Christ and embrace him as Lord in all of his greatness.

⁹ My passion is to be consumed with him and not clinging to my own “righteousness” based in keeping the written Law. My “righteousness” will be his, based on the faithfulness of Jesus Christ—the very righteousness that comes from God. ¹⁰ And I continually long to know the wonders of Jesus more fully and to experience the overflowing power of his resurrection working in me. I will be one with him in his sufferings and I will be one with him in his death. ¹¹ Only then will I be able to experience complete oneness with him in his resurrection from the realm of death.

¹² I admit that I haven’t yet acquired the absolute fullness that I’m pursuing, but I run with passion into his abundance so that I may reach the purpose that Jesus Christ has called me to fulfill and wants me to discover. ¹³ I don’t depend on my own strength to accomplish this;^[a] however I do have one compelling focus: I forget all of the past as I fasten my heart to the future instead.  Philippians 3:7-13 (TPT)

If you have not yet made Jesus your Savior and received the wonderful joy that His finished work on the cross has provided for you to live in, please visit my page here titled Jesus In The Driver’s Seat. On this page I explain the good news of the gospel and you will have the opportunity to pray a prayer of salvation, making Jesus your Savior! Jesus loves you and His arms are wide open!

Special Note: Remember to check my calendar of events on the homepage of this website to see where I’ll be speaking this year! I’ll have all the details for each event filled in by the end of this week! You can always get back to my homepage by clicking on our ministry logo in the top left hand corner of any page.

Sandra McCollom