There was a time in my life when I was searching for something but I didn’t quite know what it was. For a while it would be success, then happiness, then maybe a real purpose in life. So I would try seeking material things, or I would become preoccupied with having a great social life or I would get into deep thinking about the meaning of life but nothing I did ever ended that search.
I was almost 30 when I met a man who told me the best news I’ve ever heard in my life. He explained some things from the Bible to me that I had never understood or even heard about before! For me the most powerful verses were those which explained that I don’t have to wonder about where I’m going when I die that God wants me to know that I already have eternal life!
Now the search is over and I know that the purpose of my life is to please God in all that I do in return for all that He has already done for me. The answer was not in material things or a great social life or my own personal philosophy of life but in knowing the God of the Bible and what He has done.
I was raised in the catholic church and as a result never heard the true gospel of Christ’s finished work on the cross. I was taught that God’s grace was only available through participating in the sacrifice of the Catholic Mass and receiving the various sacraments administered only by the Catholic Church and I accepted that. However from the church and my parents I did learn and hold fast to certain basic valid beliefs such as a fear of God, the historical death of Christ, a final judgment and a real heaven and Hell.
My wife Sue was raised a nominal Methodist and agreed to a Catholic wedding. As the children got older we began to attend church regularly. Sue’s questioning of the teaching and lifeless spirit eventually caused me to realize that something was drastically wrong with our relationship with God. I remember thinking over & over ,… “ something is definitely missing and I want to find out what it is.” One day I was reading a worthless novel, it dawned on me that I had never read the Bible. It was the next book I read and I was absolutely fascinated by it content and I seemed to understand more than I was given to believe. But I still needed someone to expound on the clarity of the Bible even farther, I needed a Philip.
At the same time we moved to Florida to start a new life. Little did I know that the new life God had in store for me was much different than what I had in mind. I went to work for a self-employed Christian who openly shared his faith in Christ with his employees. Once he found out I was raised a catholic ( as he was) and that I was intrigued by the Bible, he began to explain to me the things I did not understand, he was my Philip.
When I realized the amazing truth of what Christ had already done for me and how utterly lost I was without personally appropriating Christ’s death on the cross as the only acceptable sacrifice to the father for forgiveness of my sins I was stunned and cut to the quick. I was in awe of the wonder of it and unable to think about anything else and kept thinking ( as the hyman writer has written) “ can it be?”
I’ll never forget the evening of September 25, 1977, when I realized that it was! I knelt down next to the bed, alone and in the darkness and just wept over so great a salvation and then received Jesus Christ as my personal Lord & Savior I immediately felt a sense of freshness & newness & great joy and thanksgiving.