September, 2024 (MCC Chicago) What Finally Alive Meant to Me
Back in September, sitting in prison with nothing but time, I read Finally Alive by John Piper. I didn’t pick it up because I was looking for theology or wanted to get smarter about God. I picked it up because I was desperate. I was tired. I was at the end of myself.
I knew about Jesus my whole life. I’d gone through the motions, prayed the prayers, even tried to clean up my life a few times. But what I started to realize—while locked up and stripped of everything I usually leaned on—was that I’d never actually been born again and surrendered myself to Jesus.
That’s the whole point of this book. Piper makes it plain: being born again isn’t just about changing your behavior or deciding to believe in God. It’s about God doing something to you—giving you a new heart, new desires, new eyes to see. It’s a resurrection from the inside out.
There was this moment while reading when it finally hit me: I hadn’t just made some bad choices—I was dead in my sin. Spiritually blind. Trying to save myself through good behavior or charm or knowledge or control. And that wasn’t going to cut it anymore. I needed Jesus. Not just as a helper or a fixer, but as a Savior. As Lord. As the only one who could actually change me. I needed to let Jesus walk with me through my struggles, to actually carry my cross for me.
One thing Piper said that hit me was this: “The new birth is not a decision; it’s a miracle.” That took the pressure off me to perform or fake it. I didn’t need to try harder to be good. I needed to surrender. I needed to admit that I couldn’t make myself new—but God could.
And He did. Not in a lightning bolt moment. Not in some tear-filled altar call. But in a slow, steady cracking open of my heart, right there in the quiet, behind bars. I started to see sin for what it really was—not just bad behavior, but rebellion against a holy God who actually loves me. I started to want Jesus, not just for what He could do for me, but because He islife.
I prayed differently. I read the Bible and it felt alive. I started to hunger for righteousness—not because I was trying to earn anything, but because something in me had shifted. I was being changed.
John 3:3 kept echoing:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
I was blind before. And now I see. I can’t explain how else I made it through that time with a growing peace in my soul. I still had no answers about my future. My charges weren’t going away. I didn’t know what was coming next. But I knew Jesus was with me. And I knew I wasn’t the same.
I think the biggest thing I walked away with was this: Being born again doesn’t mean you suddenly stop struggling. It means you now fight the right battles, with the right strength, from a place of being fully loved and fully secure in Christ. It’s not about cleaning yourself up—it’s about walking in a whole new identity. One you didn’t earn, and you can’t lose.
I don’t know what people think when they hear “born again.” Maybe they think it’s some cliché, churchy phrase. For me, it means life where there was death. Peace where there was torment. Clarity where there was confusion. Grace where there was sin. It means Jesus reached into the darkest, most uncertain chapter of my life—and called me His.
I’m not the man I used to be. I’ve still got a long way to go, but I know this: I’m finally alive. And that changes everything.
