Salvation Testimonies

Anonymous, USA

 

One day I became frozen with fear at the thought of what would happen to me if I died. I instinctively knew that there was more to life than life as I knew it, but what that was, I didn’t know. Nevertheless, I went on with life, pursuing my dream of a career in music. That kept me distracted enough to not have to face that big question.

 

Sometime later, my best friend told me about an experience that he had with Jesus Christ that radically changed his life. I balked at the idea. I finally gave in to his urging me to come meet some other people that experienced the same thing. I had to admit there was something real about what these people were experiencing, but for me I was already full steam ahead in my music career and had no room in my life for this kind of thing.

 

Again I buried the question of life after death in my busyness and aggression for my place in the music world. One day, when on the road, I met a man in a hotel in Toronto, Canada, where I was playing. He seemed to take a special interest in me. After we ended our discussion and just before we parted our ways, he gave me a book that told about events that the Bible say are going to happen just before the end of human history as we know it. The book really jolted me. Based on what was going on in the world at that time, I reasoned that what I read could really be true, and if it was, what will happen to me? But again I continued on my hot pursuit of my musical career and once again buried the issue in my busyness.

 

About five years later I had an urge to read the Bible. I started, but it only lasted a day. Several months later I had a sense that very soon, I was going to have something to do with God, though I didn’t have the slightest idea what that was. I was home one day and I sensed what I inwardly knew to be the presence of God across the room from me. He was inviting me to come with Him. I was scared and said, “I’m not ready, and I’m too scared.” After a while He left.

 

About a month later, I met a young man named Dave who was carrying a Bible and a copy of the same book that the man in Canada had given me to read five years earlier. I told him that I had read that book and found it to be a very good book. He began to tell me about Jesus Christ and how He went in my place to be tortured and to suffer a brutal death as the payment for my sins so that I could be rightly related to God and have a guaranteed place in Heaven after I died. I listened and then told him that I would call him if I wanted to know more about this. I took his phone number, not really intending to call him, and proceeded to walk away.

 

At that point, I thought to myself, ‘suppose it’s true? Then I thought to myself, this could be my last chance to find out if what the Bible says is true, and I really should grab this opportunity to find out once and for all. I then went back to him and told him that I wanted to find out for myself if what the Bible says is true. I asked him to guide me on my quest. He recommended that I get a Bible and a Bible study book to help me learn some important things that the Bible says about man, God, and eternity. We began to meet regularly to look at what the Bible has to say about these things.

 

One day, while I was alone, I read the Bible verses: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” and “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. At that moment, for the first time in my life, I knew, that I knew, that I knew, that God was real, Jesus Christ was real, I had sinned and needed to be forgiven, and I had a serious decision to make.

 

The next time I got together with Dave, he asked me if I was ready to commit my life to God. I said that I was. He prayed and then I prayed asking Jesus to come in to my life. I felt nothing. It didn’t seem like anything had happened or changed. A week later, however, something did happen. I was playing with a Jazz band in a club. After the first set, as I was stepping off the platform, and when my foot hit the floor, something came over me. At that moment I knew, that I knew, that I knew that I was going to go to Heaven when I died. The fear and uncertainty of what would happen to me after death was itself put to death at that moment. I experienced an overwhelming sense of joy. So much so, that the first thing that I did was walk over to the first person that was directly in front of me, (which happened to be the band leader’s wife), and tell her about the reality of Jesus Christ and what I was experiencing.

 

I called my best friend and told him what had happened to me. He told me that the next step was to become part of a church of people who also had a like revelation to what I had. I went to his church, loved it, got involved in it, and began to read the Bible and pray diligently. The answers to prayer amazed me! God was listening to me and answering me. I couldn’t get enough of reading the Bible. It was so good to be able to talk to people who knew and experienced what I had. It was an exciting time in my life. I began to pursue growing toward maturity in the spiritual life and in the knowledge of God and the purpose that God had for me while on the earth. My search for truth had ended, and now I was able to live in it, and I have been doing so ever since.

 

I should mention that when I realized that I needed to get right with God, there was an issue that was a concern for me. Being Jewish, I was of a misunderstanding that Jesus was not someone for Jewish people to have anything to do with. This was soon resolved through learning more about Him. First of all, Jesus was Jewish. The name “Jesus” is Greek for the Hebrew “Yeshua” which means “God saves”. “Christ” is Greek for the Hebrew “Maschiach” or “Messiah” which means Redeemer or Savior.

 

I found out that the Old Testament (Jewish Scriptures) contain hundreds of prophecies about the coming messiah that were written many hundreds of years prior to their fulfillment. When they were fulfilled, they were recorded in what we know as the New Testament Scriptures. Jesus Christ was the only person who ever lived who fulfilled all prophecies concerning the Messiah. The Messiah was described by the prophets in the Old Testament as One who would be born of a virgin. He was described as Deity, would bear the consequences of the sins of man as a substitute, would be crucified, rise from the dead, be King of an everlasting kingdom, etc. I also was amazed to find out that an overwhelming majority of the New Testament was written by Jews who recognized Jesus as being the Messiah God had promised. I then found out that during and shortly after Jesus’ time on the earth, there were anywhere between a quarter of a million to a million Jews who recognized that Jesus was the Messiah.

 

There are a large number of Jews today throughout the earth and in Israel who know that Jesus is the Messiah. In any case, Jesus Christ came to save sinners, which includes you and me. If you haven’t seriously sought God out for yourself, don’t delay. Don’t wait until it is too late! Just ask God to reveal himself to you. If you really mean it, He will, and you will experience the change of a lifetime!

 

Used with permission:

www.changedlives.info

 

 

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