Becoming a Christian is an awakening.

It's an awakening to the pervasiveness of sin.

It's an awakening to the subtleties of evil.

It's an awakening to our need of Christ, and it is also in a strong sense an awakening

to the meaning behind all of the realities of life.

Without grace, the world desensitizes us, and it dulls our spiritual vision and it

numbs our spiritual needs, and it breeds a spiritual ignorance within us.

So in Christ, we are brought to life, given a tender heart, and given new levels of sensitivity

when it comes, even to the pains of life.

In a recent sermon in Milwaukee, at the camps outreach, 2015 New Year's conference,

John Piper addressed Paul's testimony in 2 Corinthians 6-8-10, where Paul writes about

a suffering in these pairs when he writes, through honor and dishonor, through slander

and praise, we are treated as imposterous and yet are true, as unknown and yet well-known,

as dying and behold we live, as punished and yet not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing,

as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything.

Looking off of Paul's descriptions, here's what John Piper said.

People see us as imposterous, but in spite of that, we are real.

We are virtually unknown in the Roman Empire.

Nobody's, but in spite of that, we are well-known by the one person in the universe who matters.

Third, we're dying, our bodies are wasting away, but in spite of that, our eternal life

in Christ is untouchable.

We are punished, but in spite of that, God hasn't seen fit yet to take us home.

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