As I sit and write this, I pray that GOD’s precious SPIRIT would enable, equip, and empower me to write the words that HE wants me to say.
I’ve know about JESUS since I was 14. I was invited to and then attended church several times. Over and over, in a loud booming voice, I heard the preacher tell me, just how much of a sinner I was and how I deserved what ...I was going to get, hell. Then on one of those visits, I got scared into heaven and asked JESUS to be my SAVIOR.
After that, I spent most of my time feeling like such a failure and sinner that I figured JESUS would never want the likes of me...Since I had no true understanding of WHO HE is and what HE wanted from me, I spent the next sixteen years full of the same shame, guilt, fear, hurt and anger that I had before ever hearing the name of JESUS.
Though occasionally, there would be seasons where I flirted with the idea of JESUS, mostly, my time was spent trying to find ways to escape the living hell of emotion that was going on inside of me. I knew that I was good at failing, failing to be anything but that horrible sinner that the preacher said I was...and I knew he was right after all. I had no understanding of grace or what it meant to be in a real and true relationship with anybody, let alone GOD's ONE AND ONLY SON...
Then at the age of 29, after living a life of selfish choices, I began to hear a voice inside my head, asking me to get on my knees. I knew it was GOD, and so I would get on my knees and pray. But I knew that my heart was still hard so I asked HIM to help me.
And HE did just that. Not in a way that I would like...but after several months of hearing HIS voice, my life came to a crisis, just two days after my 30th birthday. This was not the first crisis I had experienced over those sixteen years, but I knew that it might be my last...
So, after eight days of wrestling with the truth of GOD's grace, and the understanding that GOD HIMSELF could and did in fact, love someone like me, I surrendered my life to JESUS. HE was now, not just a SAVIOR but HE had become LORD of my life.
Has it been an easy road following JESUS these past 17 years?
No of course not, nothing worth while usually is...
This road has seen me stand strong , fall hard, laugh, cry and scream.
It has seen me hope, believe, trust, know, grow, and it's seen me dream.
It has seen me needy, hurt, afraid, and alone.
It has seen me misunderstand, wrestle, run, and return home.
It has seen me fly, serve, sacrifice, and sing.
But above all, it has shown me this one thing...
Grace is grace and it can never be earned.
What that preacher said that day was true, this I have learned.
I am a sinner and I do deserve hell.
But don't worry about me because all is well.
You see I have SAVIOR who knows all of this.
And HE made a way for me to have eternal bliss...
Will it be on this side of heaven, no probably not.
But I don't have to give up because here's the rest of the plot.
Here in this world, I may have pain, strain and strife.
But I am never alone because I have JESUS in my life.
The truth of grace has nothing to do with me so I have no worry. Because my past, my life, the grace that I have seen, is all about HIM, it's HIS-story.
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