8 October 2009.
Hi there!
I guess it had to happen sometime. After a lot of thinking about whether to go ahead or not, I have decided to go ahead with an account of my Christian experiences. The idea is for others to learn from my experiences (mostly mistakes!) so that they can avoid making the same mistakes that I did. At 70 years of age (as at September 2009) I have had a lot of opportunities to make many mistakes! But thank God for the peace He gives when we acknowledge our wrongs!
This is not going to be only an autobiography although I will share some of the events from my life. And it certainly will not be in chronological sequence. As I think of something I will be writing about it. It will be a sharing of what I have learned about being a Christian through the years since I became a born again believer on 25 October 1957, just before I wrote my matric. I will be including other writings such as short stories and poetry which I hope you will enjoy.
That born again experience determined how I view conversion. There are those who claim that they do not remember a time when they did not love the Lord and thought of themselves as His children. They cannot remember any dramatic change in themselves. For me there was a dramatic, clearly evident change. One day I was unsaved, using foul language like, as the saying goes, a trooper, and smoking to prove I was a 'man'. That night I acknowledged to Jesus that I was a sinner who was not worthy of going to heaven, and asking Jesus to be my Saviour and take my sins away. I immediately sensed the change in me. From that moment I stopped smoking, no longer used foul language or told dirty jokes, and knew that I was a different person. Why? It was explained to me later that the Holy Spirit of God came to live in me when I prayed for Jesus to be my Saviour. He immediately forgave my sins, making me clean spiritually which made it okay for the Holy Spirit to come into me and begin to change my habits, attitudes, and thinking.
I will be sharing many joys, victories and blessings that have come my way through the years. But I will also be sharing the not-so-good parts of my life with the view to helping others as they try to cope with their Christian walk. I know the experience of being a backslider when for 6 years I never went to church (back in the late 1960's) and the wonder of discovering that during those years God had never forsaken me. I will be sharing the lessons I have learned from the Bible; what it is like to live by faith when there was no guaranteed income; and many other matters that are part and parcel of life along the Christian road. I will also share my disappointment with the way many Christians - including me, as I found out afterwards - have not lived as they ought to have.
Have I any regrets? Yes, plenty of them. With the way God treated me? No, definitely no! But I have plenty of regrets about the way I have disappointed others, and not been as obedient as I should have been with God. I know now that I just never trusted Him as I should have. I was too arrogant, had too high an opinion of my own abilities for my own good, and so missed many blessings and caused heartache and anger in others. What am I doing about it? Well, I can do nothing to stop the memories of my stupidities, my wrongdoings etc from popping up in my mind from time to time. For years I would feel angry and despise myself when that happened. I would be miserable, which would have its effect on the joy I normally had in life. Paul the Apostle must have felt like that at times. You will remember how he went around arresting Christians and throwing them into jail, sharing in when they were getting killed - usually by stoning. He must have caused much harm to Christians and the cause of Christ. Fortunately God the Father is loving, gracious, patient and forgiving. He saw the potential for good in Paul, for Paul was doing his best to honour God, thinking that persecuting Christians was the way to do it. Seeing such commitment and honesty, God in the person of Jesus met with Paul on the Damascus road and made him realise he was actually fighting against God in the person of Jesus. That was Paul's conversion to Christianity. That could be expected, because Paul was determined to serve God, and when he realised that Jesus was God he became the greatest missionary the church has ever had, writing many of the letters that now appear in our New Testament. Paul's advice? 'Forgetting those things [mistakes] that are behind I reach for [God's] prize [for me].' (You'll find the whole verse in Philippians 3:13).
Incidentally, I have a different take on 'sins' committed against Jesus. Having learned that Jesus (God the Son) is loving and patient, I believe that He will accept any who confess their sins no matter the nature of their sins. A couple of years ago I was at a house church prayer meeting down at the South Coast (of KwaZulu-Natal) led by the pastor of a local Baptist church. He had a solid, vibrant testimony for Jesus. I found out afterwards that he was once a satanist, doing many satanic things. But even such activities does not put anyone beyond God's love! Just as God tells us that we should love our enemies, so God's love reaches out to all, even those who purport to be His enemies. God does not expect of us (e.g. loving our enemies) what He is not prepared to do Himself! But there must be an acknowledgment of sinfulness and a turning away from a sinful lifestyle and a turning to Jesus before God can pour His Spirit into us. Satanists who refuse to acknowledge Jesus as Lord will lose out eternally, as will any others - atheists, agnostics, rebels - who refuse to honour Him.
That brings me to a related matter. When people are openly showing their anti-God ways it is easy to identify them - and PRAY for them! So it is with satanists. At least they have the courage of their convictions, as Paul did when he went after the Christians. I brought this up because of the anti-Jesus blog on Facebook that is drawing a lot of criticism - the one where they give Jesus the finger and the F-word. My initial reaction when I heard about the blog was anger. But when I received a second email about it, I began to think a little. Here we have a group that is anti-Jesus just as much as any Satanist. Can they be converted? Of course they can - provided they recognise who Jesus is and turn to Him in contrition. How many people have not done just as badly by using the name of Jesus as a swearword? We've all come across them - and God is waiting for them to also confess and turn to Jesus. And many, many have been converted and stopped using the Lord's name for a curse. Praise the Lord for His wonderful love!
Well, I think I've rambled enough for one evening. If you've read this far, may you be richly blessed in body, soul and spirit!
Saint Ed.
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