We give it up. One day we realize that the way we are relating to our family, our friends, our job, our co-workers, employees, this church, is not good enough. The gospel requires more of us, and we suddenly find the resources to live into such change. One day we realize that everything in life is God's, gifts given to us as resources and occasions through which we express our faith and serve our Lord. Another's hand has been on us all along, forming us into the people we were created to be, in spite of those other powers and forces in this world which also strive to work on us.
Conversion is in progress.
God is at work in you, in me, in us, in this church. For God is not done with any of us yet. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Though I am in complete disagreement with Pagels' thesis, and the conclusions she draws from her research, she most adequately illustrates the climate of persecution Christians of the first and second century faced, often putting them at odds with mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers.