08/13/2024
Here's how Jesus changed my life...
I grew up in a well-off suburban home south of Pittsburgh PA, and didn't really hurt for anything - at least materially. We weren't rich, but we weren't poor either. I had a fairly uneventful, usual kind of suburban life, I suppose. It really wasn't until college, after completing high school (which I almost didn't due to a burst appendix - took 2 operations to get it out), that I discovered and tried different "vices": drinking, drugs, casual s*x - it was Kent State University in early 70's, and it was a total breakdown of just about everything. But...this is where I began wondering what the meaning of life is - I searched for God, if there was one.
After exploring various religions and philosophies, one day a man was passing out paperback versions of the Bible's New Testament: Good News for Modern Man. It was free, so I took it with me back to my dorm room. That evening, I figured though I grew up going to a Presbyterian church with my family, I hadn't really given Christianity and Jesus a fair shake. So I began reading the first Gospel of Matthew, and I was struck by how Jesus knew who He was, why He was here, and that He knew God (and turns out, was one with God as the Son of God). "What shall it profit a man if he were to gain the whole world (I was at Kent State to become an architect and get my piece of the American pie) but lose his soul?", Jesus asked. That gripped me: I didn't even know if I had a "soul".
Then I got to the crucifixion of Jesus - for no fault they could find in Him - but I knew He was dying for me. I was the sinful one (take too long to list here) and would deserve to die; but He didn't deserve it, yet He submitted to it in order to save us from our own deserved condemnation and death. Then I read that He rose from the dead: I thought, if that's true, then He's alive...now! So went to my knees for the first time in my life, and simply prayed, "Jesus, if you're really alive, I want to know You". I then had an overwhelming sense of being loved like I'd never felt before - not from my parents or any girlfriend I had "fallen in love with". I felt like God had His arms around me, valuing me, accepting me, forgiving me, and just loving me, wanting me. I wept, but at the same time, was elated. I felt different! The next day I shared what happened to me with a friend across the hall, and amazingly the same thing just happened to him as well! Matter of fact, students were dropping into Christ across campus like tumbling dominoes! I later learned that this was part of the "Jesus Movement" of that time - a true revival in which God was making Himself known through Christ, the Scriptures and Christian ministers reaching out to students.
Some Christians with the group, Navigators, got a hold of me and helped me understand, from the Scriptures, what had happened to me - and they helped me learn how to draw closer to Jesus and experience His love and presence every day. And for the last 52 years I have continued to know and enjoy Jesus and grow in His Spirit and grace, and haven't regretted a day of being a new person in Christ! I've gone through a lot of hard things since coming to Christ, but He has always helped me through them and even matured and strengthened me by those difficult times. He has become my daily reason to live, and has blessed me in my marriage, our relationships with our sons, daughters, grandkids and one great grandkid - and led me into a fulfilling, meaningful, and enriching life I never would have chosen. I'm just looking forward to when I get to go Home to Him and experience Him face-to-face.
He is risen; He is alive; and YOU can know Him, too.