from an orphan to a son

Before I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I was miserable in every way. I felt like the hardest working failure at life, marriage, business, and socially. I was insecure ,and I think I wanted approval from someone. I longed to know that I was OK. so I began the quest of fixing myself. I remedied that with gaining gaining insight from humanistic books and positive mental discipline to change my attitude, bhut there was no purpose to live for except to be successful at whatever I did. I wanted power to become whatever I wanted to be . I was empty and nothing could fill the hole in my heart. The harder I tried the worse it got.

I read books of philosophy of humanism, like The Magic of Thinking Big, The Power of Positive Thinking, and Think and Grow Rich. It was mostly a philosophy of humanism, believing in your own self potential but not in God. Beverly invited me to go hear a motivational speaker who talked about the same stuff, but one thing he mentioned that I had never heard anyone say is that “There are positive things from the Bible”. The answer I needed. Never read it, so I figured I would at least read it. I hated to admit that this could be as good as the books that I had to motivate me , but I did read it beginning in the New Testament. wisdom, his personality, his devotion to God. After 2 months of reading, and I remember in Luke 15, when I read about the prodigal son I saw my own sin of rebellion. It would be so hard to come to come to Jesus because I knew the commitment that He would require. In my mind I believed that if I was going to be a Christian then I would have to be good, but how could I be good when I am a failure. So, I kept reading. And if I didn’t become a Christian then My life and eternity would be miserable. I was being torn in half by my dilemma. But then I became aware that I didn’t have a choice. What was interesting was my attitude was different. I went from thinking of Christianity as something that would be a nice addition to help me, into thinking that I may be excluded from God’s kingdom, because I believed that sinners like me could not ever make it into His kingdom. And then I remember I could sense that God the Father pointed me to Jesus, and said “I can’t take you, but Jesus will take you and work with you if you surrender your life to him”. I ran to Jesus in my mind. I physically, got on my knees and pleaded with him to forgive me. With tears of joy and regret I deeply sensed that all my sins were forgiven. I was a accepted. I was now saved from the wrath of God that my sins deserved. For so long I rejected Him. I asked Him to come into my life and make everything better. I vowed to never go back on my word, regardless of the cost. I made an unconditional surrender to the king of the universe, and he accepted my surrender. I was no longer His enemy.

I had begun to have confidence and enjoyed knowing about Jesus and eh hope that Jesus could give me, ands my family and others. After three months of being home worshiping at home, I decided to go to a church. I found a church that believed like I did and began my journey to start life all over as a Christian disciple of his.

I am now completely confident of my justification and approval of God the Father through the work that Jesus did for me. It was all by his work not my efforts that got me in the family.

I made new friendships with other believers and my business took on a different meaning. I had somethng to share with others now that made a difference in my life.

I know that if He were ask me why should He let me in to his heaven, I would say because you want your children to be with you, you know me and promised to give eternal and you will never renig on your promise. I have been crucified with Christ he life I have lived on earth I lived by faith in you Jesus and those who had their faith in you and you alone, you said, will have eternal life. And I believed in everyday of my existence.