Look, I know your inbox is full of Easter content this morning. So instead of following that trend I want to share my personal testimony with you about how I was brought to saving faith in Jesus Christ in my own life. Yes! He is risen. And my life has been changed forever by that good news!
Here we go!
I grew up in a Christian home. I attended church regularly. Had Christian friends. Listened to Christian music. I was even baptized. All around, if you saw me you would have assumed I was Christian.
But in my very ‘christianized’ environment I somehow missed the entire point.
It wasn’t until just a few years ago, that I came face-to-face with the truth.
It was a Monday morning. I was up well before everyone else. The sun was barely up, and I could see the silhouette of cat heads peering in through the window. my cup of coffee cup before me, it’s a little puffs of steam barely visible.
I didn’t know then, but everything about my life was about to change.
The prior day I had gone to church as usual. Our pastor had for some time been exegeting his way through the book of Mark and we had come to the crucifixion of Christ.
Like most Sundays, I didn’t really care to be there. I had come to a place in my life where Christianity meant nothing to me.
Our family due to some unique circumstances landed in this church.
Words cannot express fully what that community of believers did for our family at that time.
Oh! how they took us in, loved us with a Christlike love, fed our family spiritually in a way we hadn’t been in other churches.
Yes, we found a home for our souls.
As time progressed we decided to become active members there.
Although I always thought I was a Christian, I came face-to- face with an unsettling reality.
As a part of becoming new members, we had to write our testimonies.
I can remember it so vividly.
I was sitting there trying to write. Trying to tell the story of what God had done in my life. Trying to express how He had changed me.
And I just sat there.
The words weren’t there.
The change wasn’t there.
The Hope I thought I had, was gone like the wind.
A sinking feeling came over me as I sat there grappling with this strange development.
I’m not saved?
How is that even possible?
How can I have lived my life like this and be so unsure of my salvation?
Where did I go wrong?
How have I failed God, my parents, and everyone that has ever poured the truth into me?
It was a horrific reality.
I shared this fact with my parents. They were as shocked as I was. But they were there for me and the pastor and elders were there to help me through.
But things always get worse before they get better.
At least so far as I know.
After months of meetings, I found myself at a place where I saw absolutely no point to any of what was being said to me. It was a very dark place. My life seemed like a waste. Faith meant nothing, and did nothing for me.
But God wasn’t going to let me go so easily.
What if it’s true?
Doubt over my choice gave me pause. Sure, I didn’t care. Sure, I didn’t think that faith was for me.
At that point I didn’t know anything. I just knew I didn’t need church or Christ in my life. And I should have been happy.
But that question again.
What if it’s true?
In the end the question won out.
Though I hated it and wanted to be anywhere but at church, I kept going every week.
What if it was true and I was walking away from the solution to my problems?
I needed to be sure that I didn’t make a mistake.
Time passed and we arrive at the Sunday where my pastor preached a sermon on the bodily suffering of Christ during the crucifixion from the book of Mark.
Monday morning, and it’s just me, my thoughts and my cup of coffee.
And for once, my thoughts wandered back to the sermon.
I imagined the scene. The jeering crowd. The spiteful religious leaders. The weeping women. The disciples. The nails driven mercilessly through his hands. The spear to his side.
I was imagining it all when another thought popped into my mind.
He did it for you, it said.
He did it all for you.
I cannot adequately describe this, but I will try.
The words just kept dancing in my head. A sort of chant, a wild ping-ponging dance inside me.
Like cannonballs bashing me to pieces they seemed like they would never stop.
He did it for you.
My past months of open antipathy towards God, my whole life an act of rebellion towards Him even though I believed I was doing right for all those childish years, stood out in my my as vividly as a Michelangelo painting.
I was a sinner. A rebel. A hater of God and the Truth. Like Jonah I had run the other way, thinking that I was going to be okay.
I had tried my own path. I tried to find my Truth.
But unlike the story of the couple who retired early to sail and collect sea-shells, I didn’t have to stand before an omnipotent, thrice holy God and offer Him my worldly possessions as my means of entering eternal bliss.
No. There in the kitchen where I could see the first glints of sunrise sweeping across the yard, I found myself undesirable, unwanted, black with sin.
And there was God freely offering me forgiveness.
Me!
I remember praying there.
Asking for mercy, forgiveness and grace.
Begging is a better word.
I begged for mercy , forgiveness and grace.
And all I can say is that in that moment when I finished praying, I felt my burdens lifted. My sin, my hatred, my past, my future, were all at Jesus’ feet and for the first time in my life, the peace I had been searching for, had found me.
As I conclude, I will leave you with these final thoughts.
Not only has the gospel transformed my life, but it can transform yours.
My story can be your story.
God made you to love Him ultimately, but the sin of mankind stands in the way. Jesus came to make a way where there wasn’t one. He died once for all on that beautiful, terrible cross so that we didn’t have to.
As Tim Keller wrote in the last sentence of his book, King’s Cross:
‘He absorbed your darkness so that one day you can finally and dazzlingly become your true self and take your seat at His eternal feast.’
He did it all.
He did it all for me.
He can do it all for you.
Repent and believe.
Acts 16:32 says:
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.’
This is a promise.
This is God’s promise that is freely offered to all, for all time.
Thanks for reading!
God bless
Beautiful.
Your ego cracked.
It comes from surrendering.
The gospel served as a symbolic hammer to your psychological system.
This is Higher Truth dissolving delusions.