On September 18 Amanda & I celebrated our 3 year anniversary of regeneration! Just 3 years ago God graciously opened our eyes, raised us to spiritual life, made us new creatures, gave us new hearts & His Spirit, and granted us repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To God I lay my life, talents, and gifts at His feet. I praise You Lord, for your faithfulness. You alone drew me to Yourself when I was a wretch pursing sin and even now you continue to cleanse me of my filthiness. To You alone belongs all glory, praise, worship, power, and dominion.
Here is a personal reflective piece I wrote for my English class recently about this glorious experience:
Very few believers in Jesus Christ have had such a dramatic conversion to Christianity as that of Saul from Tarsus. Saul was on the road to Damascus with intentions of violently jailing more Christians for their faith when he encountered Jesus Christ. After Jesus revealed himself to Paul it changed him forever. Paul’s purpose, desires and efforts conformed to an agenda that would please and glorify God. I, like Paul, have had a unexpected encounter with God that left me changed forever. My conversion was not so dramatic but it was definitive. It occurred on September 18, 2005 at a small church in Louisville, Kentucky.
Nearly all of my childhood I remember attending a Christian Church and was convinced that I was a Christian. Nevertheless, as I grew into my latter teenage years my lifestyle and desires were no different than any of my non-Christian friends. Sure I went to Church on Sundays but that was the depth of my Christian commitment to Christ. The rest of the week I was too busy serving and pleasing myself to ever consider that I loved sin and the things of this fleeting world more than my supposed Savior. I inched through life reaching out for anything that would temporarily satisfy my wondering heart and reckless teenage appetites.
At the age of 19, I began examining my own heart and considering my own ways and what my life was becoming. I had wasted a college basketball scholarship, dropped out of school, severed a relationship with my parents, quit my job, and turned to drug dealers for
friendship and a place to live. My life was a down spiraling party with no sense of peace or direction. I can remember sitting around with my intoxicated friends and asking them in a tone of disgust, “Don’t you think there is more to life then getting drunk and high?” Their blank looks and responses compelled me to blow the dust off my Bible and begin reading it for answers. I was living around constant drug abuse and violence but was intrigued by what I read in the Scriptures.
Following this crazy summer I received a post card from a local church advertising a drama they were performing called, “Final Destination.” It was attractive and interesting so my girlfriend, Amanda, and I decided to go. This drama didn’t contain great acting or stellar visual effects but it exposed something deep within me that I had never seen before. These actors seemed just like me as they committed everyday sins that I habitually did without any remorse. The drama and following message from the pastor helped me understand that there would be a day of recompense and I would have to give an account for every sin I have ever committed life.
To an extent I had always affirmed this intellectually but it was evident that I didn’t really believe it when one looked at my careless and sinful lifestyle. This terrified me because I honestly knew who I was in my heart and what I did when the pastor wasn’t looking. God was unlike any man, he could see through my shallow confessions and into a cold heart that was arrogant enough to think that empty lip service was required rather than an earnest heart. God had seen my every word, thought and deed. My conscience condemned me and my heart wouldn’t give me any rest at that moment.
For the first time in my life my eyes where opened to see how sinful I was and that I deserved to go to hell when I died. It didn’t matter that I was a church member, or had been
baptized, or that I had looked the part on Sunday mornings. My faith was self-serving and superficial. I had only made a glib decision in my mind but my heart had never truly changed. There was no fooling myself when I examined what I watched, whom I hung around, how I talked, and what things I occupied myself with. There had never been a turning away from sin in my life with an embracing of Christ as my all-satisfying joy and treasure. I had been a harlot to God by asking for his blessing on Sunday and then sleeping around with a sinful world the rest of the week. God would judge the heart and not the mask that showed up at church on Sunday morning.
The guilt I felt at that moment was nothing less than crushing. God was perfect and holy and demanded this of me if I were to be in a saving relationship with him. But it was plain that I was stained and filthy by my sinfulness. I was drawn to my precious and gracious Savior, Jesus Christ, who desired to rid me of my guilt and cleanse me through his death and resurrection. I trusted that Jesus died form me as a sinless and perfect sacrifice to satisfy the penalty of my sins. He amazingly died on a cross but not because he had sinned but because he was paying for the sins of others. I had broken God’s commandments but by faith I trusted that Jesus paid my sinful depth that I owed God and gave me His righteousness so that I could now be his child forever!
Since this day I have grown to love and treasure Christ more and more without ever looking back. Daily I stumble but the faithful God who saved me is quick to discipline me so that he may keep me. It seems that from the day of my conversion until now there has been a cleansing of my past love affair with sin and a growing desire to love God and the things he loves. I don’t know where I’d be today if I hadn’t encountered God on September 18, 2005. I’m just glad that I’m now fighting for God rather than against him.
Today I am so passionate about the gospel of Jesus Christ that I regularly go out to the streets to share the good news of Jesus Christ with any and all. I hope to go into full-time ministry one day with my wife. And yes, I did mention the blessing of a wife. I married that lovely girl who went with me to the drama on September 18, 2005. She also became a child of God that night.
