I Was A False Convert
I was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina, just as was my mother. My father was from a small town in Georgia. I have often joked that I am the result of when a south Georgia redneck meets up with a western North Carolina hillbilly. The unfortunate thing is that my parents separated and divorced not long after my birth, something that is a common story among my generation. You might say I had somewhat of a troubled childhood. During the early part, of which, I was back and forth between two families. One consisting of my mother, step-father, and an older half brother. The other, a family I had no blood ties to, but would end up being the one to whom I am the most attached, even to this day.
For the most part I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church and attended regularly while I was residing or visiting with my adopted family. I was about ten years old when I remember a Sunday School teacher stating "that if you wanted to go to Heaven you had to be saved". So, in response upon hearing this, I told my adopted parents I wanted to be saved. A couple of weeks later I was baptized. I could, at this point tell you that is when I received Christ as my Savior and inherited salvation. But, that wouldn't be the truth. In actuality, I had only recited a prayer and had gotten wet. There had been no conviction of sin, no repentance as a result of said conviction and no regeneration. I was a false convert. The succeeding years of my life would bear this fact out. As our Savior stated both in Matthew 7:16 and Luke 6:44, "A tree is known by its fruits."
As the next few years went by on into my teens, I ended up with my birth mother and step-father. This situation deteriorated into me being exposed to a drug culture in which both parents became users and dealers. The same was true of my older half brother. He would be in and out of juvenile facilities until ultimately graduating to prison.
During this time period in my life, it would have been extremely easy for me to have slipped into the same trap as my family had. I had already been doing poorly in school and adopted an "I don't care" attitude, the result of which would be me dropping out. At the age of sixteen, I finally came to a point where I told myself, I could no longer live in this situation and concluded I would have to run away. I was blessed by God that I had a place to go. The adopted family I had mentioned earlier was right there willing to take me in. The following school year I was re enrolled in another school district and did very well. All was good and everything was running smooth. I had a happy life and was a normal teenage boy given the situation I had just come out of. One thing though, had I given God the glory for having delivered me from that dark place? No... I hadn't. God was the furthest thing from my mind. Although, I was attending church regularly, was very active in the youth group, and my best friend was the pastors son. I still was without Christ in my life and never gave any thought to Him. I had a superficial appearance of Christianity, but my life was full of sinful indulgences. I was consumed with girls, alcohol, and partying.
Eventually, I would go on to graduate high school and enter the workforce having decided to go into law enforcement. Possibly out of rebellion against the environment I had been exposed to. I began the steps to achieve this and in the process met a beautiful woman who was to become my wife. In 1992 I became a Deputy Sheriff for the Buncombe County Sheriff's Department. About a year after that I married the beautiful woman I had just mentioned. It almost sounds perfect. But, the truth is I had completely quit going to church and before marrying, to my parent’s dismay, had begun living with my future wife. Some would say I was in a backslidden state. Truth of the matter is I had never slid forward to begin with.
Still, I had no conviction of the sin I was committing, or had committed up to that point. I would even go so far as to say that I had become agnostic. My thinking and understanding of the gospel had become so warped that even though I wasn't sure if God was there or not, I had said a prayer when I was a child, had been baptized, and grew up in church. So I should be covered if there was a God. I look back on this now and can only shake my head. How many other people are there, that are just like I was?
Almost five years I worked for Buncombe County before leaving Asheville and law enforcement to relocate to South Carolina. My wife's brother had presented me with an opportunity to work with his company. An opportunity to make more money.
We arrived in South Carolina in 1996 and began working in the telecommunications industry with my in-laws. Not long after, my family and I began attending a small independent Baptist church out of town that my in-laws had been attending. My wife would come to salvation while we were here. We attended for approximately three years. At this point I would say I had come to an acknowledgement of God, sort of a mental assent, but I still continued to live my life as any other unsaved worldly person. In hindsight now I can’t help but be reminded of James 2:19-20, “19 You believe that God is one; you do well. The demons also believe—and they shudder. 20 Foolish man! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless?”
My family and I decided to begin attending a church closer to home as opposed to traveling back and forth every Sunday morning and night, as well as Wednesday nights so we found a church in our area. Still, I was without Jesus. It would be shortly after this, I would find true salvation in Christ.
I can remember it happened on a Sunday morning; I was twenty-nine at the time and I was preparing to drive to Asheville to visit my parents. For some reason, and I can’t remember the catalyst, my wife and I had an especially heated exchange. I remember leaving the house, slamming the front door, and getting into my truck thinking to myself, “This is it. This one has done it. We will end up getting a divorce.” I started the truck and found the radio tuned to a preacher, by the name of Allistair Begg. I cannot remember what it was that he said, all I can say is that it felt like a ton of bricks hit me. The conviction of my sin overcame me and I began to weep like a child. Amidst my weeping I called out to Christ to forgive me and to help me. This was the first time I had truly called out, from my heart, for Jesus. Then, in that moment it was as if someone had begun to embrace me. It would be an impossible endeavor to attempt to put into words the feeling that overcame me, and at the time I did not know what was happening. It would be later on that I would realize, I had been regenerated and had experienced the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The awesome feeling of love I experienced, and continued to experience for a period of time afterwards, was nothing short of breathtaking. This would become the dividing line in my life. Everything prior to this point was without Christ, and now everything after was with Christ.
Now, I would like to qualify what I have just described and say, this was my own personal experience. I consider myself blessed for having had that experience but I would not use it as a test for others regarding their own salvation. Nor would I rely upon it as evidence of my own. As I stated earlier, Christ told us in Matthew 7:16 and Luke 6:43 we will be known by our fruits. In Galatians 5:22-23 Paul tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. It will be by the display of these, only by the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, which will testify to my salvation. If I or anybody else were to rely solely upon a subjective experience, it could set a bad precedent. There are people in other religions that claim to have had similar experiences, and would use the same as evidence for truth regarding their own beliefs. However, we know we hold the truth and it is backed up by the written word, and the living Word.
We must be careful not to substitute an emotional experience for an authentic conversion. Our Lord addressed such in Matthew chapter 13, in the parable of the sower. If you remember the seed sown on the rocky ground, it is received immediately with joy. But since it has no root, when pressure and persecution comes, it is short lived. So, as I have said, I look upon this experience as a blessing and see it as my regeneration. However, I do not use it as the measure and leave it at that, but place it within it's proper position within the whole context of my salvation.
After this experience I became increasingly active within the church we were attending and even became a deacon after a few years. I began to grow in Christ and had a hunger for the Word and for His will in my life. My whole outlook on life changed, I was a new person. It was during this time I again switched professions. In 2005 I returned to law enforcement and began working with the local police department. I was able to take advantage of opportunities to witness my faith while in this position and I have fond memories of my time there. The unfortunate thing is not long afterward; the church my family and I were attending underwent a series of trials, from dealing with dismissing a pastor to the exercise of church discipline. The latter I was personally involved with due to my position of deacon. Without going into detail, my family and I would end up leaving this same church due to what I deemed a lack of needed action in keeping with Scripture, regarding a certain situation. I felt I had been let down.
Satan and his evil spirits are very slick and I view this time as the beginning of a great fall for me. After we left this church, I and my family visited a few others but never settled on one. We stopped going altogether. This combined with a prideful heart I had developed over the aforementioned situation contributed to a woeful predicament. I now know that even if you are right about a certain thing, and can back it up with Scripture, you must have love in your heart and not let it turn into something evil that can be counterproductive. To compound things, I had begun to focus mostly on money and would end up leaving the police department to take a position with a Department of State contractor working in Iraq... MONEY. This would take me away from my family and would place me in a position that would be detrimental to my testimony. I have learned that if we do not strive to remain in fellowship with the Lord, we can fall prey to our own fallen sinful natures if not to Satan himself.
I arrived in Baghdad at the end September of 2007, but I had been away from home since the beginning of August. Almost at the very beginning I began to act differently. I found myself talking, acting, and thinking contrary to what I had proclaimed to be… a Christian. It was almost as if I would do something and then afterwards think, what is wrong with you? You know better than that. But, it would continue. Financially, we were doing well. But, spiritually it was taking a toll.
So much so that, I had an old high school girlfriend find me online while I was overseas. This would lead to my darkest days thus far. In my weakened spiritual state, one thing led to another and I would ultimately tell my wife that I wanted a divorce, using the excuse that she had used the money I had made in Iraq unwisely. I would then leave Baghdad and would fly back to begin living with this old girlfriend in another state. I can remember feeling numb at the time this was transpiring. I actually lived in sin with this woman for four (4) months. I look back at this now and I am horrified at my own evil. How can a child of God go from where I was, to the point I was at during that time? One thing I can say, during the entire period, I had no peace within my soul whatsoever. I had a constant weight upon me and felt as if I could hardly breathe. I was unable to sleep. I had no comfort in anything and felt on edge all of the time. I would think “I need to go home” but in my messed up thinking, I would feel that I had passed the point of no return and was now trapped, despite my wife’s pleadings to come home. I know that my inability to have peace was due to my grieving of the Holy Spirit within me. There was also a feeling within me that said I was close to death, more so at that point than any other time in my life including while in various situations in law enforcement or in Iraq. It was a strong real sense that death could, and would, overtake me at any moment.
In 1 John 5:16, the apostle speaks of a “Sin unto Death”. I have seen this verse interpreted in conjunction with Acts 5:1-10, the incident concerning Ananias and Sapphira who both dropped dead in front of Peter for their sin. And with 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 in which Paul addresses the Corinthians and tells them the reason some of them were sick and why some had even died. Many had come to the Lord’s Supper (a testimony that they were partakers of Christ and identified with Him.) in an unworthy state, with unrepentant sin, and had brought judgment upon themselves. They were now being disciplined by the Lord so as to not be condemned along with the world.
I truly believe I was at that time in danger of engaging in a “sin unto death”. Had I remained in that unrepentant state, I believe the Lord would have taken me. I can look back at this now and take a certain comfort from it. Had I been able to maintain living in that situation without any reluctance, feeling or conviction, would have been reason to question whether I had truly been saved.
Things progressed to the point that my wife and I ended up in court for an initial appearance. The court date appointed was February 25th. That same date just happened to be our sixteenth wedding anniversary. After an emotional experience within the courtroom, my wife approached me outside. She expressed her love for me and once again told me she wanted me to come home. However, I still felt trapped inside my situation. I would later that day, return to our home to retrieve some personal items and to visit with my daughter. It was there in our home, where I broke down and began sobbing to my wife that I wanted to return but felt that I was unable. My wife, also crying, embraced me, told me she loved me and that I could come back. It was at that point we were reconciled to each other... on our sixteenth wedding anniversary. It was almost instantly, that all of the weight that had been upon me was lifted. My wife demonstrated the love, patience, and forgiveness of God that was granted to her by the Holy Spirit when I was undeserving of it. I had hurt her, and my children, in an unimaginable way, and although she never brings it up or throws it in my face. The knowledge of it is something I will live with forever. Our sin does have its consequences.
Thus began a long road back to Christ. I wish I could say I immediately got back on track but I didn’t, it would be, and is, a gradual process. We began attending church again. The Lord had blessed me with regaining employment almost immediately and would later on make the provision for me gain a better job with a company locally I had made application with while in Iraq. A funny thing regarding this is, while I was in the midst of living in sin I was contacted by this company with an offer, but turned it down since I was not living in the area. But only seven months after returning home, I was again given the same opportunity. I can say that after getting off of the phone with a representative of that company and after being made an offer, I praised and thanked God because I knew it was due to His Providence.
Since that time the Lord has revealed more and more to me. He has grown me in grace and I have since really examined myself. The apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 13:5 said this, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” So I would implore you, do not find yourself in the same situation I was in for so many years. Are you following Christ, or are you following after the world as I was. In James 4:4 the Lord’s brother said “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God.Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” Do not do as I did. I would proclaim being a Christian with my lips, but would deny him with my actions. I was an unfruitful branch. Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” John 15:5-6.
He has shown me that I have to make him the Lord of my life. Not just the Lord of Sunday or Lord of the good times, or bad times, or sometimes. But all the time in every area of my life. I now have a compulsion to Christ, a need to stay in his Word, to speak to Him on a regular basis, and to be obedient to him. Not out of fear, but out of love. Love for what he has done for me already in my life, and ultimately for what he did almost two-thousand years ago on Calvary. Like any Christian there are times when I will fall, but thanks to God’s grace and the indwelling of his Holy Spirit I can repent and continue onward. His sanctification is at work within me. In keeping with Philippians 1:6, He who started a good work in me, will carry it on in completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
For the most part I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church and attended regularly while I was residing or visiting with my adopted family. I was about ten years old when I remember a Sunday School teacher stating "that if you wanted to go to Heaven you had to be saved". So, in response upon hearing this, I told my adopted parents I wanted to be saved. A couple of weeks later I was baptized. I could, at this point tell you that is when I received Christ as my Savior and inherited salvation. But, that wouldn't be the truth. In actuality, I had only recited a prayer and had gotten wet. There had been no conviction of sin, no repentance as a result of said conviction and no regeneration. I was a false convert. The succeeding years of my life would bear this fact out. As our Savior stated both in Matthew 7:16 and Luke 6:44, "A tree is known by its fruits."
As the next few years went by on into my teens, I ended up with my birth mother and step-father. This situation deteriorated into me being exposed to a drug culture in which both parents became users and dealers. The same was true of my older half brother. He would be in and out of juvenile facilities until ultimately graduating to prison.
During this time period in my life, it would have been extremely easy for me to have slipped into the same trap as my family had. I had already been doing poorly in school and adopted an "I don't care" attitude, the result of which would be me dropping out. At the age of sixteen, I finally came to a point where I told myself, I could no longer live in this situation and concluded I would have to run away. I was blessed by God that I had a place to go. The adopted family I had mentioned earlier was right there willing to take me in. The following school year I was re enrolled in another school district and did very well. All was good and everything was running smooth. I had a happy life and was a normal teenage boy given the situation I had just come out of. One thing though, had I given God the glory for having delivered me from that dark place? No... I hadn't. God was the furthest thing from my mind. Although, I was attending church regularly, was very active in the youth group, and my best friend was the pastors son. I still was without Christ in my life and never gave any thought to Him. I had a superficial appearance of Christianity, but my life was full of sinful indulgences. I was consumed with girls, alcohol, and partying.
Eventually, I would go on to graduate high school and enter the workforce having decided to go into law enforcement. Possibly out of rebellion against the environment I had been exposed to. I began the steps to achieve this and in the process met a beautiful woman who was to become my wife. In 1992 I became a Deputy Sheriff for the Buncombe County Sheriff's Department. About a year after that I married the beautiful woman I had just mentioned. It almost sounds perfect. But, the truth is I had completely quit going to church and before marrying, to my parent’s dismay, had begun living with my future wife. Some would say I was in a backslidden state. Truth of the matter is I had never slid forward to begin with.
Still, I had no conviction of the sin I was committing, or had committed up to that point. I would even go so far as to say that I had become agnostic. My thinking and understanding of the gospel had become so warped that even though I wasn't sure if God was there or not, I had said a prayer when I was a child, had been baptized, and grew up in church. So I should be covered if there was a God. I look back on this now and can only shake my head. How many other people are there, that are just like I was?
Almost five years I worked for Buncombe County before leaving Asheville and law enforcement to relocate to South Carolina. My wife's brother had presented me with an opportunity to work with his company. An opportunity to make more money.
We arrived in South Carolina in 1996 and began working in the telecommunications industry with my in-laws. Not long after, my family and I began attending a small independent Baptist church out of town that my in-laws had been attending. My wife would come to salvation while we were here. We attended for approximately three years. At this point I would say I had come to an acknowledgement of God, sort of a mental assent, but I still continued to live my life as any other unsaved worldly person. In hindsight now I can’t help but be reminded of James 2:19-20, “19 You believe that God is one; you do well. The demons also believe—and they shudder. 20 Foolish man! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless?”
My family and I decided to begin attending a church closer to home as opposed to traveling back and forth every Sunday morning and night, as well as Wednesday nights so we found a church in our area. Still, I was without Jesus. It would be shortly after this, I would find true salvation in Christ.
I can remember it happened on a Sunday morning; I was twenty-nine at the time and I was preparing to drive to Asheville to visit my parents. For some reason, and I can’t remember the catalyst, my wife and I had an especially heated exchange. I remember leaving the house, slamming the front door, and getting into my truck thinking to myself, “This is it. This one has done it. We will end up getting a divorce.” I started the truck and found the radio tuned to a preacher, by the name of Allistair Begg. I cannot remember what it was that he said, all I can say is that it felt like a ton of bricks hit me. The conviction of my sin overcame me and I began to weep like a child. Amidst my weeping I called out to Christ to forgive me and to help me. This was the first time I had truly called out, from my heart, for Jesus. Then, in that moment it was as if someone had begun to embrace me. It would be an impossible endeavor to attempt to put into words the feeling that overcame me, and at the time I did not know what was happening. It would be later on that I would realize, I had been regenerated and had experienced the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The awesome feeling of love I experienced, and continued to experience for a period of time afterwards, was nothing short of breathtaking. This would become the dividing line in my life. Everything prior to this point was without Christ, and now everything after was with Christ.
Now, I would like to qualify what I have just described and say, this was my own personal experience. I consider myself blessed for having had that experience but I would not use it as a test for others regarding their own salvation. Nor would I rely upon it as evidence of my own. As I stated earlier, Christ told us in Matthew 7:16 and Luke 6:43 we will be known by our fruits. In Galatians 5:22-23 Paul tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. It will be by the display of these, only by the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, which will testify to my salvation. If I or anybody else were to rely solely upon a subjective experience, it could set a bad precedent. There are people in other religions that claim to have had similar experiences, and would use the same as evidence for truth regarding their own beliefs. However, we know we hold the truth and it is backed up by the written word, and the living Word.
We must be careful not to substitute an emotional experience for an authentic conversion. Our Lord addressed such in Matthew chapter 13, in the parable of the sower. If you remember the seed sown on the rocky ground, it is received immediately with joy. But since it has no root, when pressure and persecution comes, it is short lived. So, as I have said, I look upon this experience as a blessing and see it as my regeneration. However, I do not use it as the measure and leave it at that, but place it within it's proper position within the whole context of my salvation.
After this experience I became increasingly active within the church we were attending and even became a deacon after a few years. I began to grow in Christ and had a hunger for the Word and for His will in my life. My whole outlook on life changed, I was a new person. It was during this time I again switched professions. In 2005 I returned to law enforcement and began working with the local police department. I was able to take advantage of opportunities to witness my faith while in this position and I have fond memories of my time there. The unfortunate thing is not long afterward; the church my family and I were attending underwent a series of trials, from dealing with dismissing a pastor to the exercise of church discipline. The latter I was personally involved with due to my position of deacon. Without going into detail, my family and I would end up leaving this same church due to what I deemed a lack of needed action in keeping with Scripture, regarding a certain situation. I felt I had been let down.
Satan and his evil spirits are very slick and I view this time as the beginning of a great fall for me. After we left this church, I and my family visited a few others but never settled on one. We stopped going altogether. This combined with a prideful heart I had developed over the aforementioned situation contributed to a woeful predicament. I now know that even if you are right about a certain thing, and can back it up with Scripture, you must have love in your heart and not let it turn into something evil that can be counterproductive. To compound things, I had begun to focus mostly on money and would end up leaving the police department to take a position with a Department of State contractor working in Iraq... MONEY. This would take me away from my family and would place me in a position that would be detrimental to my testimony. I have learned that if we do not strive to remain in fellowship with the Lord, we can fall prey to our own fallen sinful natures if not to Satan himself.
I arrived in Baghdad at the end September of 2007, but I had been away from home since the beginning of August. Almost at the very beginning I began to act differently. I found myself talking, acting, and thinking contrary to what I had proclaimed to be… a Christian. It was almost as if I would do something and then afterwards think, what is wrong with you? You know better than that. But, it would continue. Financially, we were doing well. But, spiritually it was taking a toll.
So much so that, I had an old high school girlfriend find me online while I was overseas. This would lead to my darkest days thus far. In my weakened spiritual state, one thing led to another and I would ultimately tell my wife that I wanted a divorce, using the excuse that she had used the money I had made in Iraq unwisely. I would then leave Baghdad and would fly back to begin living with this old girlfriend in another state. I can remember feeling numb at the time this was transpiring. I actually lived in sin with this woman for four (4) months. I look back at this now and I am horrified at my own evil. How can a child of God go from where I was, to the point I was at during that time? One thing I can say, during the entire period, I had no peace within my soul whatsoever. I had a constant weight upon me and felt as if I could hardly breathe. I was unable to sleep. I had no comfort in anything and felt on edge all of the time. I would think “I need to go home” but in my messed up thinking, I would feel that I had passed the point of no return and was now trapped, despite my wife’s pleadings to come home. I know that my inability to have peace was due to my grieving of the Holy Spirit within me. There was also a feeling within me that said I was close to death, more so at that point than any other time in my life including while in various situations in law enforcement or in Iraq. It was a strong real sense that death could, and would, overtake me at any moment.
In 1 John 5:16, the apostle speaks of a “Sin unto Death”. I have seen this verse interpreted in conjunction with Acts 5:1-10, the incident concerning Ananias and Sapphira who both dropped dead in front of Peter for their sin. And with 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 in which Paul addresses the Corinthians and tells them the reason some of them were sick and why some had even died. Many had come to the Lord’s Supper (a testimony that they were partakers of Christ and identified with Him.) in an unworthy state, with unrepentant sin, and had brought judgment upon themselves. They were now being disciplined by the Lord so as to not be condemned along with the world.
I truly believe I was at that time in danger of engaging in a “sin unto death”. Had I remained in that unrepentant state, I believe the Lord would have taken me. I can look back at this now and take a certain comfort from it. Had I been able to maintain living in that situation without any reluctance, feeling or conviction, would have been reason to question whether I had truly been saved.
Things progressed to the point that my wife and I ended up in court for an initial appearance. The court date appointed was February 25th. That same date just happened to be our sixteenth wedding anniversary. After an emotional experience within the courtroom, my wife approached me outside. She expressed her love for me and once again told me she wanted me to come home. However, I still felt trapped inside my situation. I would later that day, return to our home to retrieve some personal items and to visit with my daughter. It was there in our home, where I broke down and began sobbing to my wife that I wanted to return but felt that I was unable. My wife, also crying, embraced me, told me she loved me and that I could come back. It was at that point we were reconciled to each other... on our sixteenth wedding anniversary. It was almost instantly, that all of the weight that had been upon me was lifted. My wife demonstrated the love, patience, and forgiveness of God that was granted to her by the Holy Spirit when I was undeserving of it. I had hurt her, and my children, in an unimaginable way, and although she never brings it up or throws it in my face. The knowledge of it is something I will live with forever. Our sin does have its consequences.
Thus began a long road back to Christ. I wish I could say I immediately got back on track but I didn’t, it would be, and is, a gradual process. We began attending church again. The Lord had blessed me with regaining employment almost immediately and would later on make the provision for me gain a better job with a company locally I had made application with while in Iraq. A funny thing regarding this is, while I was in the midst of living in sin I was contacted by this company with an offer, but turned it down since I was not living in the area. But only seven months after returning home, I was again given the same opportunity. I can say that after getting off of the phone with a representative of that company and after being made an offer, I praised and thanked God because I knew it was due to His Providence.
Since that time the Lord has revealed more and more to me. He has grown me in grace and I have since really examined myself. The apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 13:5 said this, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” So I would implore you, do not find yourself in the same situation I was in for so many years. Are you following Christ, or are you following after the world as I was. In James 4:4 the Lord’s brother said “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God.Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” Do not do as I did. I would proclaim being a Christian with my lips, but would deny him with my actions. I was an unfruitful branch. Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” John 15:5-6.
He has shown me that I have to make him the Lord of my life. Not just the Lord of Sunday or Lord of the good times, or bad times, or sometimes. But all the time in every area of my life. I now have a compulsion to Christ, a need to stay in his Word, to speak to Him on a regular basis, and to be obedient to him. Not out of fear, but out of love. Love for what he has done for me already in my life, and ultimately for what he did almost two-thousand years ago on Calvary. Like any Christian there are times when I will fall, but thanks to God’s grace and the indwelling of his Holy Spirit I can repent and continue onward. His sanctification is at work within me. In keeping with Philippians 1:6, He who started a good work in me, will carry it on in completion until the day of Christ Jesus.