In my senior year of High School, my stepfather
died in a car accident, and I fell into depression. I had enlisted in the Navy prior to his death,
and headed off to boot camp. In the Navy
you meet all kinds of people, and since I had the opportunity, I asked everybody
about their religion. They all basically
said the same thing: get baptized, join a church, give money, etc, and when you
die, you might go to Heaven. Well I liked the way I lived and the few
times I ever went to church I did not care for it, so I just kept doing what I
was doing. None of the religious people
had any assurance or confidence they were actually right, so why change? I had a life, I had plans, and I did not need
religion.
Depression is not something you can just ignore,
if you don’t face it, it doesn’t go away.
I got quite drunk a time or two, and the Navy sent me to counseling. After my interview the counselor said to me “You
are not an alcoholic, but you are clinically depressed.” It’s a really good idea in the Navy to follow
orders, so off to rehab I went! A
Chaplain came in one day to talk to us.
He said “It does not matter what you believe, as long as you have a
higher power. A doorknob could be your
higher power, what matters is that you believe”. Back at my bunk I said to myself, that is the
dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
I believe there is a God, so there must be a way to get to God. I may be religiously ignorant, but I do know
math, and 1 + 1 = 2. If there is a God,
then it only stands to reason that there would be a way to know Him. After Rehab I returned to my ship, and laying
on my workbench was a pamphlet called “God’s Simple Plan of Salvation.” I read it and thought “that’s it, that’s the
answer. But I don’t have time for this right
now,” and I threw it away.
The Navy decided to discharge me early, and I
went home and got a job in sales for my mom’s company, and was good at it. I made good money for not having a college
degree, and liked what I did. I had an
opportunity to move on and work in sales for an Insurance Agency, and I took it. I worked with a ‘religious’ guy named Steve,
and started to ask him questions about what he believed just like I had done
many times before. But Steve responded
differently. He told me he knew he was “saved” and knew he was going to Heaven when
he died. Stop the press. I had
never heard of this ‘saved’ thing, and I never met anyone who said they knew it. I
asked Steve what ‘saved’ was, and how he ‘knew’ he was going to Heaven. Steve said that He had confessed to the Lord Jesus
Christ that he was a sinner, and asked the Lord to forgive him. And he knew at that very moment that all his
sins were forgiven and that he was on his way to Heaven. He quoted this bible verse:
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the
Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe
on the name of the Son of God. (1 John
5:13)
For three months I would ask Steve questions and
he would answer me from the bible. One
day I asked him “Why do you always quote
the bible, I want to know what you think, not what the bible says. I don’t believe the bible”. He smiled and said “it does not matter what
I think, what matters is what the bible says.
The bible is our Judge:”
He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that
judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last
day. (John 12:48)
Stop. I was going to be judged by what was written
in the bible!?!? Yes. Not by a man or
a religion or someone’s opinion, but by what was written in the bible, and I
had no idea what was in that book.
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point,
he is guilty of all. (James 2:10)
If
I had ever broken just one of the Ten Commandments, I was guilty of breaking
the whole law. One lie, one theft, one
lustful look at a girl, one thought of having something someone else had,
taking one single thing that was not mine.
Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them
who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may
become guilty before God. (Romans 3:19)
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)
It did not take long for me to realize that I
was guilty under God’s Law, and that made me a sinner. Under the law of God the penalty for sin was
Hell. That was a horrible thought, but I
knew from my experience with depression that ignoring something like this will
not make it go away. This all seemed
quite heartless – it did not fit my idea of a loving creator. Steve answered my concern:
God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to
repentance: (II Peter 3:9)
God did not want me in Hell, or anyone else for
that matter, so out of love He sent Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to pay for my
sins Himself:
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent
his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
(1 John 4:10)
And
He did something no one else had ever done: He rose from the dead:
… Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he
was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
(1 Corinthians 15:3-4)
He did this out of love for you and me:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John
3:16)
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for
his friends. (John 15:13)
Steve gave me a pamphlet, “God’s Simple Plan of
Salvation”, the same one I had read two years before in the Navy. I read it again, and came to the same
conclusion; this was the answer. It also
gave the solution to the problem:
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt
believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved. (Romans 10:9)
This
did not seem to fit any religious process I ever heard about. Just confess and ask for forgiveness? No Baptism,
no works, no money, no religious rites?
That seemed all too easy. I was
invited to church (again), and called a friend I DJ’ed with at a local college
bar to see if he wanted to go along for the ride. He was shocked that I was even considering
it, but said yes. After that service, I
knew I needed what they were talking about.
I knew I was a sinner, and I was under the condemnation of the Law of God,
the Creator of Heaven and Earth.
I was absolutely terrified at the thought of
dying, and where I would go. I got home
and paced about the house, looking for that pamphlet, which I could not find,
but I remembered what it said: Confess to
the Lord that you are a sinner and ask Him to forgive you and save your soul. I knelt down in my living room and said
“Lord, I know I am a sinner, and I don’t want to go to Hell when I die. I sure hope I don’t have to confess all my
sins, because I don’t remember them all, but I am asking you to forgive me and
save me.”
That dreadful fear was gone, instantly. There was a sense of relief, even joy, and
this indescribably peace. How could I be in such desperation one minute and
have complete relief the next? What is
this joy that I am feeling, this peace? What
just happened?
The answers to all these questions are found in
the bible. The last question is the book
of Romans:
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the
mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:10)
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your
hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)
On Sunday, July 13th 1989, I called
upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, confessed I was a sinner and asked Him
to save me. I was not reciting some
‘magic incantation’ prayer: These were my
words, from my heart to God’s ears.
It was not what someone else told me to say, it was what I wanted to
say. I wanted the pardon that God was
offering through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
I went from believing that Jesus was invented by
Religion to control people and get money out of them, to personally
experiencing the saving grace of God, and the pardon for sin. I had a personal relationship now with the
one whose name I cursed!
Very quickly, my old friends knew something had
happened, even though I had not said anything to them. One of them asked me
“what happened to you”. I said “what do
you mean,” and he replied, “you quit swearing”.
I had not noticed, but he was right: My ‘sailor’s mouth’ was gone.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things
are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
I did not know that this was in the bible, but
it certainly applied to me. Christ had
not only paid for all my sins, and forgiven me for them, but He also gave me a
whole new life, one that has proven to be far better than anything I ever could
have imagined!
This event was the greatest event in my
life. I now understand what Steve meant
when he said “I know my sins are
forgiven, I know I am going to Heaven
when I die”. I also know, just like Steve did, and you can know as well.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans
10:17)
God is truly no respecter of persons. Race, Creed, Color, Class, all mean nothing
to Him. You too, can have that peace
that passes all understanding. Christ is
just as willing to forgive you as He was to forgive me. You don’t have to take my word for it, you
can take His.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I
invite you to know the God that changed my life.
Well written, and very informative, and inspiring.
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