Perhaps
no other verse could have rang truer on the day that Jesus saved my soul.
It was May of 1971, I was about to graduate from high school, and for the
first time in all my school years I had made some friends. I was the quiet
bashful type, my parents had moved a lot, and I had never learned to make
friends. My new friends invited me to a revival service at a small Baptist
Church that they attended. I went and my life was changed for all eternity.
I had never
really attended church before. I really didn't know what being "saved"
meant. I had read through the Bible and knew the basic Bible stories, but
that was all they were to me. I had never thought about what the Bible
had to do with me or really understood any of it. The Saturday night I
attended that little church everything was different. I couldn't tell you
what was preached that night, but it must have been the "true Gospel".
During the services a heavy burden came upon me. I suddenly found myself
searching deep within myself looking for something I couldn't find. I didn't
understand it then, but I now know it was the Holy Spirit drawing me and
placing a conviction in my heart. I
left church that night still carrying that burden. That night in bed the
feeling just continued to grow. I began to feel more miserable then I had
ever felt. I found myself weeping uncontrollably. It was in this misery
that the Holy Spirit finally made me to realize what was wrong. I was totally
separated from God by sin in my life. I reached a point where I could not
possibly feel any more guilty, or sorry for my sin, or alone. The feeling
of total helplessness is indescribable. I saw nothing I could do and found
myself reaching for God as if I had jumped off a cliff and was trusting
in Him to catch me. It was at this point that it happened. I can't say
what actually occurred but one second I was most miserable and the next
I was totally and absolutely filled with a feeling of peace. Everything
was all right. I no longer felt separated from God, but totally filled
with Him. I can't really explain how I knew , but I knew that I had been
changed, "born again", that I had an eternal home with God, and most importantly
that it was because Jesus had applied His shed blood to my heart. I knew
that it was nothing I had done, but that Jesus had "chosen me".
That night I gained a new friend, Jesus.
He has stood by me ever since. No matter how poorly I have treated Him
He has never changed. What a friend we have in Jesus