If thought and actions define who receives God's grace and mercy, then I would be without it. But God wants our faith before any action or gift.
I grew up without a father, so I turned to stealing, fighting and cursing. In my teen years I found a Catholic version of God that would inspire a departure from those sins. In exchange I was in a youth group, youth choir and did retreats. God was working me, but I thought that I believed in Him because my family did. I loathed my sins and believed that there was no guarantee for true forgiveness. I felt that with Jesus I'll end up hating myself.
College taught me original thoughts from humans not God. I'll never forget the night I wanted to say a prayer but my mind stopped it. Praying was no longer allowed if I want to be my own-self.
I was a writer and a thinker, my mind was so unique. This brought me to a vast exposure of music, politics, travel, and film. Highly addicting sins like pornography, alcohol, and marijuana defined me. Buddhism, improvisation comedy and even freestyle rhyming over hip-hop beats became my forms of worship. I was fearless in exploring the dark side of human kind. if I was to love myself completely I had to love my sins also.
By now I really didn't think the devil existed. I started writing stories in college that hated Christian thought. I satirized religion by creating my own.
Surprisingly I believed that I had enlightenment and could be a reincarnation of Buddha, so one night I tried to reach nirvana by getting naked and running off a pier in Chicago. The next day I was arrested for being naked on the streets. When the police asked me my name, I said I didn't have one. they asked me the time, I said that time did not exist.
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I spent a month in a mental hospital diagnosed with hyperreligiousness (a type of schizophrenia) and bi-polar. But the Christians closest to me knew it was a demonic possession. The illness often mentioned in the Gospels but seldom on the ten o'clock news. My friends and family prayed over me so that Jesus would reclaim the ownership of mind, body and soul.
In Luke chapter 11 verses 24-26 Jesus talks of an evil spirit leaving a person and wandering back into them with seven more evil spirits once that person has cleaned and straightened up. A year after hospitalization my sins grew to include gambling, premarital sex, harder drugs and not loving myself. Satan intoxicated my thinking to convince me that I was the second coming of Jesus Christ able to grant salvation. This blaspheming lead to me tear up a Bible and urinate uncontrollably.
The day I submitted all my trust and faith to Jesus Christ started out like a normal Friday except I watched Tyler Perry's "I Can Do Bad All By Myself." One character in the play was so devastated at the evil that was tearing that family apart. She rebuked Satan in the name of Jesus Christ, rattling the magazines, throwing the pillows, repeating "the the Devil has no place in this house, go, get out in the name of Jesus." (a striking image if you believe that objects have energy as Buddhism taught me). As I went to work, I turned the corner of my apartment building to see that my car had been stolen. I returned to the apartment, called work, and dialed the police... As I waited I got down on my knees, closed my eyes and said:
"I forgot how to pray, but Lord Jesus I can't do this, this weight is too much. Jesus I remember in the Bible You saying that You lift up burdens and give light ones. Well this is for you to take please, I'm not deserving. Jesus I give you my soul, please forgive me and take all that I am. I have failed on my own."
After, I went to each room in my apartment shook stuff up, and demanded that the Devil and his depressiveness be cast out in the name of Jesus Christ, who is Lord forever and owner of this space...
The following days Satan tried to convince my mind that I never gave my life to Jesus, that that moment didn't happen. Soon after, I found this church in the yellow pages. It was here that I became convinced of the connectedness of Christians to one another in the body of Christ. Praying for people I've never met was humbling.
Pastor Jack's sermon on sexual immorality has brought biblical proof of how sickly my eyes wandered and that I've sinned against people too not just God. But the degree of lust's grip on me decreases with each time I lift my sin up in prayer and insist that Christ has forgiven it. Even dating now is reserved to finding a wife.
After smoking for ten years, I haven't had a cigarette in five months because that craving gets crushed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Gambling and illegal drugs are no longer in my life. Some sins are torn from me overnight like that and some like drinking require time and a Christian support group.
Submitting to authority used to make me cringe, yet overnight upon reading Romans I've come to pray for my leaders instead of holding their faults over their heads. (I prayed for obedience and submission to bosses at my Job.)
At work I participate in conversations that give no glory to God. I don't want people to stray from knowing God on my account. I still have a long way to go as a Christian worshiper.
Yet God's blessings for me since November include a 1983 Toyota supra, a G4 computer, a promotion at work, BSF International, a Christian young adult group, men's bible study, volunteering opportunities, tons of Christian media and then there's softball. I never thought that hitting a single just out of reach of the short stop would make me laugh and cry in sync on the car ride home.
I stand before you today filled with a willingness to obey the teaching of the Bible. My brain's detective work has lead me to accept the Bible as the word of God. My heart is healing by how much I've changed in less then a year.
God's work merits all glory. Today is really significant to me -it is a big deal. I'm going public telling you all that from now on I'm gonna trust and turn to Christ with whatever happens to me.
I gave my portion of faith to Jesus Christ on November tenth 2006. On that day, in my scrambled prayer I asked God to grant a light burden, this was the verse I was thinking of. It is Matt 11:29-30 Jesus says: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
