Growing up my immediate family were not
Christians. My mother was raised in a Catholic home in the suburbs of Chicago,
while my stepfather was raised in the Bible belt in north Alabama. His extended
family were Freewill Baptists. After marrying, my stepfather and moving to
north Alabama, my mother started attending this Freewill Baptist church.
Although she attended periodically, he never did, nor was serving or worshiping
God a reality in my family’s life. However, regardless if they attended or not,
they made sure that I got a ride on the church bus or a family member would
pick me up so that I could attend church.
I attended church off and on for
several years leading up to my youth. It was at this time that I began experimenting
with drugs and alcohol. The curiosity of girls was fueled by drugs and alcohol.
It seemed that the more alcohol and drugs I had, the more attractive I seemed
to females. More females led to more drugs and alcohol, unitl one day, I woke
up and found myself a twenty-one year old drunk, cocaine addict, who had
dropped out of high school and junior college with nowhere to live. I was
homeless, jobless, and hopeless. Or at least, so I thought.
A friend who I attended high school
with had come to the Lord and was serving as youth minister at the local First
Baptist church. He had come to the place where I was living, and he began to
share with me what Christ had done in his life. He had been where I was
currently, or at least close to it. And now he was sober, had a job, and even a
car. I thought if Jesus did this for him, He might do it for me. However,
Michael did not talk about all the material blessings he had, but the spiritual
blessings he received through Jesus Christ. He spoke about how he had broken
God’s law, he deserved to be judged, but that Jesus Christ came and died for not
only his sins, but also for mine. He then shared with me that I too could be
forgiven of all my sins by trusting in what Jesus had done for me by faith.
However, I was not prepared to make
such a commitment. I mean, heck, I was the worst sinner of all. Little did I know
that Jesus died for the worst sinners of all. As time passed by, Michael
invited me to attend church with him. I declined at first, but by the end of
the week, I was so discouraged and depressed that I needed something. I had
tried everything under the sun for happiness, but I always came away empty. I
attended church with him for two weeks. After the second Sunday, I don’t
remember what the preacher preached on, but I knew that I needed Jesus.
After service that morning, Michael
and I were in the parking lot of the church where he explained the gospel
further and I was overcome by my sin against God. It was there that I told
Michael I needed, no, I wanted Christ to save me. As I look back at that moment,
I received Christ as my Savior. I was a mere babe in Christ who needed to be
discipled. The following week I was obedient in following the Lord in
believer’s baptism. The only problem was that I was not discipled and failed to
grow in the Lord. However, God in
His grace not only saved me, but sealed me by His Holy Spirit. The Lord brought
other men in my life who sacrificially poured their lives into me. It was
during this time that I began to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. I
had a holy hunger for the things of God and even found myself desiring to teach
God’s Word. I began to truly understand the grace of God in the salvation of
sinners and God’s desire to save sinners through the proclamation of the
gospel. It was during this time that God began to prepare my heart to surrender
my life to Him by serving Him in vocational ministry.
God’s amazing grace reached down in
the miry pit and breathed new life into me. Whereby, I began to have desire to love and follow Him by being obedient to His Word. No matter where you are or how bad you think you are, God is able to rescue you
too. Do you desire to be freed from your sin and guilt? Turn from your sin and
look unto Jesus and be saved.
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