KenE@21B
Well-Known Member
Unlike many people who grew up in Christian homes and who had a 'natural' path to salvation, mine was convoluted and hard-fought!
After having spent (my first) seven years at a Catholic school (my family was not Catholic, but very poor, and the nuns took pity and made an exception for me) I started senior school pretty much convinced that there was no hope for my soul, as I was ineligible to participate in mass or confession.
At fourteen, I attended my first Christian tent meeting, and desperately grabbed at the opportunity to 'get saved'. I went through all the motions, but without any discipleship and only a (difficult to understand) KJV Bible, I quickly succumbed to habitual sin and found myself back in the place of hopelessness.
At sixteen I had an amazing (almost Damascus road) experience at a youth camp. Surrounded by young people who started praising God in tongues, I became terrified - but inexplicably attracted to the joy that I saw in the worshipers faces - and from the depths of my heart cried: "God - if You are there, I NEED YOU!"
The next moment I felt something akin to bolts of lightning shooting up from the floor, through my feet, up my legs, into my body and out of my (now outstretched, uplifted) hands - and it felt as if every single cell in my body was being burnt thoroughly clean, as if by fire...
I finally fell to my knees, sobbing uncontrollably, convinced that God had heard my cry for help and that He had reached out His loving Hand, across time and space, to touch me as only He knew I needed.
In my ignorance I associated the physical experience with the salvation experience.
I constantly tried to recreate and re-experience the same (supernatural) feeling - and when I could not, immediately started to doubt that it was even real.
Once again, the lack of proper discipleship, my own immaturity and the influence of friends gradually relegated this experience to 'teenage hysteria'.
As I started a career in computer science my new paradigm of 'everything logical' made the experience seem even more fantastic, and I backslid into a completely worldly lifestyle.
Forward 13 years.
I was now married with an 8 year old son - but the pressure of the IT industry had me drinking very heavily, smoking marijuana daily and often partaking of harder drugs.
Unbeknownst to me, my wife had finally reached breaking point... In South Africa, I would have been jailed and I would have lost my job if I got caught smoking marijuana - and she finally made an appointment with a divorce lawyer as she could no longer take the stress.
The very next day (Friday) I had to take her and my son to a 'family camp weekend' organised by the church that she (and my son) attended.
When we arrived at the venue, I carried their two suitcases to their cottage, and was stopped in my tracks by a passing stranger - who thrust out a hand, grabbed me by my shoulder, and said: "My friend - you have a head like a computer... to you everything is black and white! But God wants to tell you something - it's not what's in your head that matters, but what's in your heart!"
If these words had been written in mile-high flames across the sky, I couldnt have been more floored!
Instead of returning home to a wild weekend of booze and drugs, I spent the entire weekend listening intently to every sermon.
One of the messages was based on the 'step of faith' principle which God often uses to bring about miraculous change.
So when I returned home that Sunday evening, I asked my wife for a Bible.
I put my pack of cigarettes on the bedside table, placed the Bible on top of it, and spoke to God.
I told Him how I had tried (and failed) for seventeen years to stop smoking - and if I did not not stop smoking, I would not be able to stop smoking weed (and doing mandrax, ecstacy, etc) - and so that this was my 'child-like step of faith'.
I had been told that there was 'power' in this 'Word of God' and I said to God that if I were to 'get to the source of my sin' I would have to go through His Word - and then went to sleep.
The following Monday morning, instead of rolling a joint (before my eyes were even properlly focused) I showered and helped my son get ready for school. When the time came to leave I (according to habit) grabbed my cigarettes, lighter, ID badge and car keys and headed off to work.
When I arrived at my desk, I was overcome by the stench of my overflowing ashtray and dirtbin. After emptying and washing these, I placed my cigarettes and lighter on top of my desk and started working.
But it suddenly struck me - the desire to smoke was gone! Even when my colleagues arrived and lit up, I had no desire at all to smoke!
By the end of the week my staff all came to my desk and demanded to know what was going on! I hadn't cussed once that week, or blown up at a difficult customer, and they insisted that 'something was going on!'
I showed them my clean ashtray - and the penny dropped! They had witnessed the many times that I had tried to quit smoking in the past - bringing big bags of mints to work, chewing gum, applying patches - and being impossible to work with - and they realised that this time was different.
God had delivered me from all my substance addictions - overnight! It has been decades now and I have not relapsed.
This experience changed everything for me.
I started to attend the same church as my wife and met a kindly elder who took me under his wing. He discipled me properly and after a year I had read the entire Bible from cover to cover and dozens of books on spiritual living.
I am now 65 years old and I know that I know that I know that I am God's child!
He has never let me down through all the storms of life and I am living in eager expectation for Him to come and fetch His Bride at any moment!
What I do not know for sure is exactly when I actually got saved!
According to the Word of God, it was (always) just a matter of time before I would bow the knee to Him - because He knew before the foundations of the earth were established that I would one day be His child.
It is my personal opinion that home life, age, maturity and experiences all play a major role in the genuine salvation experience.
The fact that less than 15% of people who respond to the salvation call actually do continue on this road for any length of time, seems to corroborate this theory.
The one thing I am sure of, is that anyone who claims to have "once been a Christian, but now no longer believes in Jesus", was never actually, genuinely, born again!
I refuse to believe that anyone who has truly experienced the amazing grace, faithfulness and lovingkindness of God could ever find anything more precious and satisfying in this world.
It is evident the lack of sound Biblical teaching on the reality of the salvation walk is the primary reason that so many Christians are unable to live in victory.
People need to be taught about both the supernatural event of being born again and the day to day (vacillating) fellowship that we experience with God.
Only then will they understand the dual nature of the Christian - holy at rebirth and (often) sinful in the daily struggle to overcome the old nature - but always and forever assured that God will complete the work He has begun in them!
I am extremely grateful to Bible teachers like the late Jack Kelley who helped me to understand and put his (clear and Bible-based) teachings into practical use in my daily life.
This brings us to the (thorny?) subject of predestination.
Romans 8:29 states: "those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.”
Is this what differentiates religious people from true Believers?
Religious people believe in the concept of God. They may even believe themselves to be 'Christian' (mainly because they are not Moslem, Hindu, etc) but lack that vital 'something' that brings them into a day-to-day, moment-by-moment intimate relationship WITH God - through the knowledge of Who Jesus Christ is and what He did to reconcile mankind to God.
Such people may live (generally) 'good' lives, often feeling guilty when they do something that they know is wrong and hoping that their good deeds will be enough to give them a 'passing grade' when it finally comes to their eligibility to enter Heaven. Sadly, death is the contant source of their greatest fear as they do everything possible to enjoy every day of their lives.
The kind of knowledge that makes one a true Believer is not just 'head knowledge'.
It is the culmination of reading and meditating on the Word of God that leads to the unshakeable conclusion that He IS Who He say He is and that He will do exactly what He has said He will do.
Such an approach to the reading of the Bible must lead to a total acceptance of His Word - God said it, I believe it and that settles it! Any other reponse is tantamount to doubting the veracity of God (Who cannot lie) and makes it impossible to develop a true and lasting trust relationship with Him.
God's miraculous ability to bring to pass all of His prophesies exactly as He has said (sometimes years, even millennia after they were uttered) gives His Word an undeniable authority and us the knowledge that we can depend on every single one of His promises.
We all have (a measure of) faith, because this is a gift from God - but trusting Him unequivocally is a totally different matter.
This changes our attitude towards God from one of fear to one of numinous awe of His indescribable glory.
The true Believer will reckon themselves dead in Christ and a pilgrim through this sin-damaged world. Death no longer has any power and becomes just a doorway between this life and eternity.
I cannot help but conclude that despite the hit-and-miss approach I experienced on my own road to becoming a 100% committed Believer, God used all of these experiences to lead me to that vital decision to TRUST Him whole-heartedly.
This is the moment that changed everything for me and put my entire future on a completely new trajectory.
My life is is now filled with peace (with God), joy (despite my circumstances) and an unshakeable hope of spending an eternity in the glorious presence of our awesome God.
After having spent (my first) seven years at a Catholic school (my family was not Catholic, but very poor, and the nuns took pity and made an exception for me) I started senior school pretty much convinced that there was no hope for my soul, as I was ineligible to participate in mass or confession.
At fourteen, I attended my first Christian tent meeting, and desperately grabbed at the opportunity to 'get saved'. I went through all the motions, but without any discipleship and only a (difficult to understand) KJV Bible, I quickly succumbed to habitual sin and found myself back in the place of hopelessness.
At sixteen I had an amazing (almost Damascus road) experience at a youth camp. Surrounded by young people who started praising God in tongues, I became terrified - but inexplicably attracted to the joy that I saw in the worshipers faces - and from the depths of my heart cried: "God - if You are there, I NEED YOU!"
The next moment I felt something akin to bolts of lightning shooting up from the floor, through my feet, up my legs, into my body and out of my (now outstretched, uplifted) hands - and it felt as if every single cell in my body was being burnt thoroughly clean, as if by fire...
I finally fell to my knees, sobbing uncontrollably, convinced that God had heard my cry for help and that He had reached out His loving Hand, across time and space, to touch me as only He knew I needed.
In my ignorance I associated the physical experience with the salvation experience.
I constantly tried to recreate and re-experience the same (supernatural) feeling - and when I could not, immediately started to doubt that it was even real.
Once again, the lack of proper discipleship, my own immaturity and the influence of friends gradually relegated this experience to 'teenage hysteria'.
As I started a career in computer science my new paradigm of 'everything logical' made the experience seem even more fantastic, and I backslid into a completely worldly lifestyle.
Forward 13 years.
I was now married with an 8 year old son - but the pressure of the IT industry had me drinking very heavily, smoking marijuana daily and often partaking of harder drugs.
Unbeknownst to me, my wife had finally reached breaking point... In South Africa, I would have been jailed and I would have lost my job if I got caught smoking marijuana - and she finally made an appointment with a divorce lawyer as she could no longer take the stress.
The very next day (Friday) I had to take her and my son to a 'family camp weekend' organised by the church that she (and my son) attended.
When we arrived at the venue, I carried their two suitcases to their cottage, and was stopped in my tracks by a passing stranger - who thrust out a hand, grabbed me by my shoulder, and said: "My friend - you have a head like a computer... to you everything is black and white! But God wants to tell you something - it's not what's in your head that matters, but what's in your heart!"
If these words had been written in mile-high flames across the sky, I couldnt have been more floored!
Instead of returning home to a wild weekend of booze and drugs, I spent the entire weekend listening intently to every sermon.
One of the messages was based on the 'step of faith' principle which God often uses to bring about miraculous change.
So when I returned home that Sunday evening, I asked my wife for a Bible.
I put my pack of cigarettes on the bedside table, placed the Bible on top of it, and spoke to God.
I told Him how I had tried (and failed) for seventeen years to stop smoking - and if I did not not stop smoking, I would not be able to stop smoking weed (and doing mandrax, ecstacy, etc) - and so that this was my 'child-like step of faith'.
I had been told that there was 'power' in this 'Word of God' and I said to God that if I were to 'get to the source of my sin' I would have to go through His Word - and then went to sleep.
The following Monday morning, instead of rolling a joint (before my eyes were even properlly focused) I showered and helped my son get ready for school. When the time came to leave I (according to habit) grabbed my cigarettes, lighter, ID badge and car keys and headed off to work.
When I arrived at my desk, I was overcome by the stench of my overflowing ashtray and dirtbin. After emptying and washing these, I placed my cigarettes and lighter on top of my desk and started working.
But it suddenly struck me - the desire to smoke was gone! Even when my colleagues arrived and lit up, I had no desire at all to smoke!
By the end of the week my staff all came to my desk and demanded to know what was going on! I hadn't cussed once that week, or blown up at a difficult customer, and they insisted that 'something was going on!'
I showed them my clean ashtray - and the penny dropped! They had witnessed the many times that I had tried to quit smoking in the past - bringing big bags of mints to work, chewing gum, applying patches - and being impossible to work with - and they realised that this time was different.
God had delivered me from all my substance addictions - overnight! It has been decades now and I have not relapsed.
This experience changed everything for me.
I started to attend the same church as my wife and met a kindly elder who took me under his wing. He discipled me properly and after a year I had read the entire Bible from cover to cover and dozens of books on spiritual living.
I am now 65 years old and I know that I know that I know that I am God's child!
He has never let me down through all the storms of life and I am living in eager expectation for Him to come and fetch His Bride at any moment!
What I do not know for sure is exactly when I actually got saved!
According to the Word of God, it was (always) just a matter of time before I would bow the knee to Him - because He knew before the foundations of the earth were established that I would one day be His child.
It is my personal opinion that home life, age, maturity and experiences all play a major role in the genuine salvation experience.
The fact that less than 15% of people who respond to the salvation call actually do continue on this road for any length of time, seems to corroborate this theory.
The one thing I am sure of, is that anyone who claims to have "once been a Christian, but now no longer believes in Jesus", was never actually, genuinely, born again!
I refuse to believe that anyone who has truly experienced the amazing grace, faithfulness and lovingkindness of God could ever find anything more precious and satisfying in this world.
It is evident the lack of sound Biblical teaching on the reality of the salvation walk is the primary reason that so many Christians are unable to live in victory.
People need to be taught about both the supernatural event of being born again and the day to day (vacillating) fellowship that we experience with God.
Only then will they understand the dual nature of the Christian - holy at rebirth and (often) sinful in the daily struggle to overcome the old nature - but always and forever assured that God will complete the work He has begun in them!
I am extremely grateful to Bible teachers like the late Jack Kelley who helped me to understand and put his (clear and Bible-based) teachings into practical use in my daily life.
This brings us to the (thorny?) subject of predestination.
Romans 8:29 states: "those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.”
Is this what differentiates religious people from true Believers?
Religious people believe in the concept of God. They may even believe themselves to be 'Christian' (mainly because they are not Moslem, Hindu, etc) but lack that vital 'something' that brings them into a day-to-day, moment-by-moment intimate relationship WITH God - through the knowledge of Who Jesus Christ is and what He did to reconcile mankind to God.
Such people may live (generally) 'good' lives, often feeling guilty when they do something that they know is wrong and hoping that their good deeds will be enough to give them a 'passing grade' when it finally comes to their eligibility to enter Heaven. Sadly, death is the contant source of their greatest fear as they do everything possible to enjoy every day of their lives.
The kind of knowledge that makes one a true Believer is not just 'head knowledge'.
It is the culmination of reading and meditating on the Word of God that leads to the unshakeable conclusion that He IS Who He say He is and that He will do exactly what He has said He will do.
Such an approach to the reading of the Bible must lead to a total acceptance of His Word - God said it, I believe it and that settles it! Any other reponse is tantamount to doubting the veracity of God (Who cannot lie) and makes it impossible to develop a true and lasting trust relationship with Him.
God's miraculous ability to bring to pass all of His prophesies exactly as He has said (sometimes years, even millennia after they were uttered) gives His Word an undeniable authority and us the knowledge that we can depend on every single one of His promises.
We all have (a measure of) faith, because this is a gift from God - but trusting Him unequivocally is a totally different matter.
This changes our attitude towards God from one of fear to one of numinous awe of His indescribable glory.
The true Believer will reckon themselves dead in Christ and a pilgrim through this sin-damaged world. Death no longer has any power and becomes just a doorway between this life and eternity.
I cannot help but conclude that despite the hit-and-miss approach I experienced on my own road to becoming a 100% committed Believer, God used all of these experiences to lead me to that vital decision to TRUST Him whole-heartedly.
This is the moment that changed everything for me and put my entire future on a completely new trajectory.
My life is is now filled with peace (with God), joy (despite my circumstances) and an unshakeable hope of spending an eternity in the glorious presence of our awesome God.
