HOW JESUS ​​IMPACTED MY LIFE

My name is Sandra Macciantelli. I live in São Paulo, Brazil and today, December 29, I am 56 years old, and for 31 years I have been walking with Jesus. I will share with you my journey to Jesus and how he impacted my life, transformed and is transforming it until today. 

I became a Christian at university when I was young (at age 24), but my search for God began a few years before that. At that time, as I started this search for God, I found a group, which I joined, in philosophy, theology and science, called Analytic Trilogy. This group worked on integral psychoanalysis and that is why I did therapy: in order to know my faults, my difficulties and who I was in a deeper way. In addition, the group also proposed to bring the Kingdom of God to earth, which delighted me tremendously. 

In 1986 they were going to New York, USA, to spread the theory of the founding psychoanalyst, and since New York is considered the center of the world – it was a strategic place for the dissemination of the group's ideas to the world. I dropped everything, including my college, and went with them on this mission. After 3 years, I realized that the purpose of bringing the Kingdom of God was increasingly distant and theoretical, since in practice, the purpose had become to defend the founder of the Trilogy. Seeing this reality, I decided to return to Brazil and the university. As I was in therapy in this group, I found I was very proud and selfish. However, I didn't know how to let go of that, so I asked God to show me how to let go of myself. A year after my return to Brazil and to the university, I was invited to study the bible by disciples who were evangelizing on the campus where I studied. 

The first study they did with me was about the life of a disciple. Hearing everything they had to say broke me deeply and I cried a lot. I realized that it was God answering the request I had made to him. It felt like a dream and that, at that moment, it was becoming a reality. Being a disciple would free me from a self-centered life and my own pride. The light of liberation was drawing me in. 

Later in my studies, I was shown the crucifixion of Jesus, and after I saw such suffering, his love broke me. There and then I knew it was Him I wanted to follow for the rest of my life. He was safe, he wouldn't change His purpose. He became the center of everything and because of Him I would do anything. It impacted my philosophy of life: my way of life, my thinking, my heart. I started to believe in marriage, in the bible, in true friendships with women. I learned to be grateful, pure and true with what was going on in my heart. The Kingdom of God had come to me, all that I longed for had reached me and finally I had found the one who is the truth and who would bring me the liberation I was looking for: Jesus. 

I could end here without telling you about the struggles and trials I went through. That would be the perfect “I found Jesus and never suffered again” story, but we all know that life is not like that and that the power of Christ is revealed in tribulations as well. So I want to tell you about the greatest spiritual trial in my life to date. 

In 2003, I participated in the leadership of the church of which I am still a part, and through a series of situations that occurred, conflicts began that culminated in expressions of hatred, revolt, slander and humiliation towards the leadership. I was directly hit by all this anger and hostility and I remember the look of hatred and the harsh words directed at me. It was in the midst of so much pain and suffering that the Holy Spirit put a thought in my heart: if Jesus went through worse things for my sake, why not do the same for Him? What a privilege to experience what Jesus went through for me, who crucified him. What an honor to be able to experience and feel a fraction of what Jesus felt when his beloved people crucified him.  

I was privileged not only to believe in Christ, but to suffer for Him (Phil. 1:29). It was time to surrender to God; it was time to empty myself of my ego; it was time to humble myself before God and people. At that time, my anchor scripture, which remains today, was Hebrews 12:2-4:

²fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. ⁴In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 

My faith was being tested and my eyes needed to stay fixed on the author of my faith, the one I believed in since the beginning, the one who loved me, found me and set me free. This was the time for me to put into practice everything I taught about Jesus, about leaving everything for Jesus and doing everything motivated by Him. It was time for my heart to surrender totally to God and my motives to be purified. Live for Christ, and live for His sake, as Acts 17:28 says: 

‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ 

All the impurities of wanting glory, recognition and power were taken from my heart. Only true faith remained. Now, only Jesus was enough. He alone was the refuge, the peace, the strength, the joy, the hope. He would consummate my faith. He is the beloved of my soul. I took my eyes off people and started looking only at Him so that I could withstand such suffering, such opposition. I had not shed my own blood, He did shed his blood for me. Thinking about Him gave me strength and courage. In the midst of all that I was going through, there was only one safe place I could stay: it was in Christ and with Christ. I could only rely on His love for me consummated on the cross. 

Jesus sustained me during this period and I remain firm with Him to this day. This is not the end of the story, because with each passing year I discover more and more of the beauty, sufficiency and love of God in Christ Jesus and how blessed I am to be in Him. In the process, a scripture I have meditated on in recent times has been Ephesians 1:3

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us

in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 

I could speak of all the blessings on this earth: my husband, children, friends, the church… life as a whole indeed, but the reality is that Jesus is my blessing and the rest are gifts that come from being in Him. Everything I have comes from Him, so I'm blessed in Him and for Him. He's already given everything I need to live life and a godly life. It is this life and truth that I have sought to imitate and not conquer, because this life was already conquered on the cross. (2 Peter 1:3)

For the past 2 years, I have meditated every day on the cross, on Christ, on what He has achieved for me without me having done anything and in the love of God that is so generous and abundant. I seek to engage my thoughts, emotions, imagination, delighting in God, in who He is, in who He says I am and what Jesus accomplished for me on the cross. 

Today, meditating and taking possession of the truths of God, in Christ Jesus, has given me a fullness that I have never experienced before. I feel the Holy Spirit working intimately and powerfully in me. Today I can say that God's love is better than life itself. These are the lyrics of a song that I have always sung with uncertainty in my heart, but that today I experience and live this reality and sing with conviction. Life itself is very good, because it is a gift from God, and you and I are His gift to this world, but there is nothing better than His Love. 

My desire is that we fully live the life in Christ Jesus, the life he won for us on the cross. May you, in 2022, take possession of the freedom and blessings that Jesus won on the cross through his blood and be motivated by the deep love for me and for you.

Happy New Year!