I am UNCHAINED! I was chained to my sin and couldn't reach for him as he reached for me, but Jesus set me free.

Before I received eternal life, I felt like life was my hell. I was a very selfish person who had no respect for anyone, not even myself.

Growing up I had a Dad who was never around, he was a truck driver over nights. He would be gone for weeks at a time, and when he was home, he would just hit me for anything I did wrong while he was gone. He used to punch me across rooms when I was young and it got more violent the older I got. All my life my Dad was always dodging the cops. He taught me not to respect authority, lie, cheat, and steal. Not by his words but by his actions. He ended up going to Jail when I was 15 years old. This would of been a great time of my life, if his Girlfriend didn't call my Mom and tell her about an affair my Dad has been having with her for many years. I lost all respect for my Dad after that. Due to that lack of respect when I was 17, I ended up getting kicked out of my house. I lived in a car for 3 months until my friends dad found me in the back of a food lion with no heater in the car and freezing. He invited me to stay with his family. Great but not so great, this was the house people went to party and do drugs. If you can name the drug, I most likely did it and sold it. My life went way out of control and due to the severity of my time in that world I don’t want go much deeper right now. I will tell you it messed up my brain for a long time, I used to speak and the words that would come out were not the words I wanted to say. They would come out jumbled and misplaced. Drugs and alcohol made me feel very different then who i was. I lost my self esteem, I couldn’t think clearly and ended up with a criminal record that to this day will not allow me to get a Job at most places. Fast forward to the age of 25, I met my beautiful and lovely now wife Jackie. She accepted Christ a year after we met, and we became unequally yoked. For those who might not know what this means, it means she was living for Christ I was not. She was righteous I was not. We ended up arguing so much that I told her that it was either God or me, that she couldn’t have both. Yeah I know now how wrong that was…… I treated her like dirt, never being the husband she needed and deserved. I eventually put us in a position that we had to move to Maryland and live in her moms basement. My attitude and desires where the same, I still felt like I deserved things, when in all reality I needed to be grateful weren't homeless. This led to more arguing and eventually my wife tried all that she could and finally she said she was done. She couldn't take it anymore and she wanted a divorce. Honestly and subconsciously I now know I was holding on to the fact she couldn't divorce me because she was a Christian. But now all that had changed I didn't know what to do I was living in my mother in laws basement and making $200 every two weeks and now my wife wants a divorce. Talk about broken, i was there.

Then someone shared the Good news with me, but this time it hit me, the words cut my hardened heart.

How could I be so selfish, how could i be so blind, How could I of not seen the person I was. I deserved Hell, and he saved me. That moment my life transformed I surrendered my heart to him, my sacrifice of drugs, booze, video games, horror movies was so minor compared to what Christ did for me, but the moment i gave it up I had never been more free.

Now that I have accepted Christ, I see the sinful man I was. He has completely transformed me and I have been made new. I will tell you today if I had a time machine and went back 5 years, I would not recognize that person I was. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! I had an earthly Father who told me how to do everything the wrong way, and now I have a heavenly Father who taught me how to do everything the right way. I was not a man until I met God. To be a Man you have to know Christ.

There is a choice to be made, you can either turn from your sin and know Christ died for it, or keep sinning and suffer the wrath of hell from a Loving Father who loves his son. Jesus did not die because of what he did but because of what we do. Most of the time when you hear people give their story, there is a conclusion. Well this is not the case for me. I am still being sanctified / transformed. The conclusion will come when my job here is finished and I go home to meet my risen saviour. Will you join me?