Sunday,
October 31, 1999
Hallowe'en.
Reformation Day.
The day of my second birth!!
I'll Never Forget ItChallenged for a second time by those who loved me enough to encourage me (fight with me) to sit through a sermon I did not want to hear, in a church I did not want to be in. In the middle of the sermon, the gospel being faithfully preached, it happened.
No fireworks. No cartwheels. No cheers.
Just a very sudden and sheer, sheer conviction of who I was standing before a thrice Holy God, my Creator and Judge, without Christ. For the first time in my 44 years, my eyes were miraculously opened and I saw myself as God had always seen me: a vile creature of a man, dripping in all my sin, full of self-righteousness and deserving of eternal punishment in hell.
The 'Good Person Mask' I had been wearing all my life fell off my face that Hallowe'en day. The Holy Spirit exposed to me who and what I truly was in the eyes of God and what I had done to deserve His eternal wrath.
I hated God.
I worshipped idols.
I cursed with God's name.
I made no time for Him.
I dishonored my parents.
I was a murderer at heart.
I was an adulterer.
I was a thief.
I was a liar.
I was a covetor.
At that moment, I knew something had happened inside me. I knew God did something in my heart. It had been dead but he made it come alive! He had turned it from a heart of stone and into a heart of flesh!
I went home. Went upstairs. Went into my room. Shut the door. Fell flat on my face. I pleaded with God to forgive me for all that I had done to violate His laws and save me. I pleaded for Christ to be my one and only Lord and Savior.
GOD WAS GRACIOUS TO SAVE ME!!!!
JESUS SUFFERED AND DIED FOR ME!!!
MY SINS WERE PAID FOR!!!
I WAS SET FREE!!!
And so began my new journey. Life for me, from then on, was going to be a bed of roses. At least, so I thought. Little did I know what how much dross I carried that still needed to be burned off and the hardship it would bring in the process.
Life has been far from perfect in the course of my last 10 years. Up and down I went. Even with the blessing of joy in knowing that I was a child of God, fully forgiven, immersed in His Word, in Christian fellowship, with a sense of calling to witness, I found myself struggling with certain sins I had only pretended I had conquered.
Days of blessing, nights of discipline. Lightness of heart, darkness of soul.
But God was merciful. A time had come when He, finally, delivered me from my particular sins that kept me from fully loving Him, fully serving Him with all my heart and being all that I could have been to those I loved. I had learned my lessons, as usual, the hard way.
"But where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more" (Romans 5:20)Still imperfect to this day,and that until glory, yet, I have been richly blessed. And God is still so patient with me, so kind to me and He continues to help me grow in this process called "sanctification" one day at a time.
GOD saved me! GOD SAVED me! GOD SAVED ME!How could that be?
Moreso, HOW CAN I KEEP QUIET ABOUT IT?

HOW CAN I WITHOLD THE GOOD NEWS OF GOD'S SAVING GRACE TO OTHERS WHO ARE AS LOST TODAY AS I WAS UP UNTIL A DECADE AGO??
God willing, there will be only one thing that will ever stop me from giving the gospel in the public square or anywhere else: my physical death.
Rejoice with me, my fellow Christians! Rejoice, NOT because of me, but because of what CHRIST did for me! Because of what He has done
for all of us on that terrible cross.
Celebrate by going out in the public square and proclaim Christ as your Savior and proclaim the gospel to the lost of this world! Give God the glory He deserves! Make everyday count
for Him!
We'll celebrate later when we are all together in Heaven at the great wedding feast of Christ and His bride, whom He made beautiful!
Until then, if given to me, I pray the next 10 years, and the rest of my time on earth, to be of greater devotion and service to the Lord of my life, the lover of my soul , my wonderful Savior, my kinsman Redeemer, my ever gracious and sovereign Father.
ALL GLORY TO GOD, forever and ever!
AMEN!