I grew up in the church.  Starting in 5^th grade or so, I was an altar boy in my town’s Methodist Church, lighting the candles and helping with communion.  Later, I was involved in the youth group and then one weekend I attended a revival at the Baptist Church, walked the aisle, and shortly after baptized.  Then about 15 years later, I was saved.  You see, all that time in church as a younger boy, I had been taught all the Bible stories….I knew Jonah and the whale, Moses and the Red Sea, Noah and the arc.  And I knew Jesus and the cross and I knew what sin was.  But there was something I now realize was missing.  Later, at the revival, I was scared to Hell.  I did not want to die and go there.  As a child, I had played with fire enough to know that it’s hot and I don’t like being burned.  And I knew that I did not want to experience that for all eternity.  But still, there was something missing.  By 18, I had heard “both sides of the gospel”:  on the one hand, Jesus loves me and on the other, without Him I was going to Hell, which didn’t seem very loving at all.  But I responded at the revival as anyone might and went forward and became what the Bible calls a false convert – a goat among the sheep, a tare among the wheat.  And I was confused.  I had no love for Christ, no desire for things that are holy, no hunger for the Word.  And I didn’t want anybody to know that I went to church.  I was ashamed of Him.

During college, I didn’t go to church at all.  Why would I, given my feelings about all of it and my confusion.  Despite these things, however, I knew I should be there.  I returned to attending church when my wife and I started our family.  We felt it important to raise our children in the church, despite my own misunderstandings.  I felt better about myself after each service I attended.  I felt better about myself after each time I participated in a ministry event.  I contributed to the conversation and dialog in our Sunday School class.  But I still did not have the missing piece.  And no one knew that a tare was among the wheat.  I looked like a wheat.  I acted like a wheat.  I talked like a wheat.  But I was nothing more than a weed.

As I drove down the road a few years ago, I was finally witnessed to – properly and biblically.  And not only was I shown the missing piece of the puzzle, but the picture the puzzle is supposed to look like was also given to me and I could see where the other pieces had been misplaced.  I had known what sin was, but I had never been shown how much God hates it; that to God, sin is like the stench from an open grave and dog vomit.  I knew we were all sinners, but I received that like we are all Americans.  Sin was finally amplified and God was finally elevated.  I knew Jesus died for me, but now I realized that it was MY SIN, MY pride, MY hatred, MY lusting, MY selfishness that put him on that tree.  Not everyone’s – MINE!  I now appreciated the sacrifice that had been made for me 2000 years ago, knowing then that I would be ashamed of Him.  And He did it anyway.  And I had never been told the truth about repentance and that it was only through humbling myself at the foot of that cross that would allow the Holy Spirit to save me and set me free.  Now I understood why he had to die.  Without it, I stood condemned.  It’s not what we do, it’s who we do it against that makes the offense punishable and determines what the punishment is.  And I understood that because God is so holy, Hell is reasonable and just.

But Jesus paid that debt, and the instant I understood all this, in its completeness, I was undone.  I cried out to him out of an overwhelming thankfulness, not fear, thankfulness, for the gift given to me, that precious and undeserved gift.  I begged and pleaded for His forgiveness and I realized I no longer wanted the things for my life I thought I wanted.  The only thing I want is Him.  I realized the things I had enjoyed I now disliked.  I found a hunger for the Word, a desire to serve, and a need for Christian fellowship.  I was born again, a new creature with a new spirit.  The parasitic fungus that makes a tare so dangerous and sickening had been removed.

My sin drove me to the cross and my Savior took it from me and killed it with Him as He died.  If you, too, have not repented of your sin and put your faith in Jesus Christ and Christ alone, then you, too, says the Bible, are destined for Hell.  But you, too, can receive life, new life, a new spirit.  You can be washed clean like I have been, by the same sacrifice that the Bible says was made for all the world.  But it will not be credited to your account if you do not rid yourself of your pride and bend the knee and cry out to Him in repentance.  The Bible says God resists the proud but gives Grace to the humble.  Soften your heart and let the Holy Spirit convict you of your sin and humble you that His Grace may flow over you.  Today is the day of salvation.  Are you born again?  Have you died to your own desires?  Is Christ precious to you?  Are you trusting the security of your soul to what Jesus did on the cross?  Or are you trusting in your self-righteousness and in the quality and quantity of your own good deeds?

The Bible says man is once to die and then judgment.  If you call yourself a Christian, you have God’s very word on what you can expect to hear on the day you stand before Him.  Don’t wonder about that day.  He has already told us what is going to happen.  It will be one of two things:  either He will say ‘Well done, good and faithful servant,’ or He will say ‘Depart from me, you worker of iniquity.  I never knew you.’  If you are not a Christian or if you are a false-convert, a hypocrite, like I was, today is the day of salvation.  I would implore you – get on your knees and He will come to you.  And He will make you new.  He will make you whole.  And He will give you life, true life, an abundant life in Him.