The Best News I Can Give You
Before I can even start to help you find joy in your life I need to tell you a little story about how I found joy in my life, and how you can have a story of your own about how joy began to come into your own heart and life. You see, joy is not something we can obtain on our own, (Ezra 6:22, Nehemiah 8:10, Psalm 21:1, Isaiah 51:11, Habakkuk 3:18, Romans 5:11), but it is a gift that we receive from the Lord. In order to receive it we must first accept the most precious gift of all, Jesus Christ Himself.
A Prayer with a Friend
Let me start by saying I was not brought up in a Christian home. I was not encouraged to follow Christ or even go to church regularly. However God loved me and always had someone in my life to tell me about him in some way. One of those people was a great friend of my dads. He would come up and spend Christmas and New Year with us ever year. My sisters and I always looked forward to his stay. Not only did he tell us about the Lord but he was just fun to be around. One year he brought his sister with him and she held a Bible study with us. She brought some Sunday School materials and went over the stories with us. She talked about Jesus and how he died for our sin, then about the devil and how he fell from heaven and wanted to destroy us. We had some discussion time but there was no conviction in our hearts for the sin in our lives. Sin was not even really a topic she went over with us much at all.
At the end of the discussion time she asked us if we wanted to go to heaven. Of course we said yes, I mean who wants to go to hell? She led us through a prayer and we all went on about our lives.
Another Prayer
About a year or so after that prayer with my dads friend, I woke up in the night after a horrible dream that I was in the darkest place I’d ever seen, with worms crawling all over me, and it was loud with screams of agony, and I remember feeling like I was on fire and being bitten, and I was screaming. I remember waking up and it feeling like my bed was shaking and I heard a calm, quiet voice say my name. That was scary too since now I was awake and did not know that voice. Apparently I had been screaming so loud in my sleep that I woke my mom up. She asked me why I was screaming. I
told her about the dream and then what I woke up to. She told me I didn’t need to worry, that I was just a child and shouldn’t be thinking about scary stuff like that. My dad had gotten up at some point when I was talking to my mom. He told her not to tell me that because even children need to know Jesus. He said a prayer with me and we all went back to bed.
Some Years Go By
Fast forward a few years. I am now 18 years old and I am working almost non stop. I found myself sitting on my bed with the night off work, I had gotten too much overtime so they made me take a day off, with nothing to do! As I was sitting there bored I started to think about who I should call to hang out with when my phone rang. It was my cousin. She asked me what I was doing and I told her nothing. Surprised, she asked me a weird question, “Do you want to go to church with me?” I laughed at her and said, ” Since when do you go to church. ” She told me that she had been going with her boyfriend and really liked it. I thought to myself, ” Well if she likes it I probably will too. ” She and I have a lot of the same interests, so I went. That started me on the road to the rest of my life.
A Couple More Years
A couple of years later I had met my husband in the very church that my cousin had invited me to that evening and the two of us had gotten very involved in working in the church. We now had two children and I was helping in Sunday School and cleaning the church twice a week. We both had a key to get in and were almost always there doing something. Any time a need arose we were among the first to volunteer to get it done. No one would’ve questioned our love for the Lord or the church at all.
The Prayer that Changed my Eternity
On August 8, 2010, something just felt different. We got ready and went to church that morning as usual. I helped teach in the junior Sunday School class as normal. Then I went in to the nursery and another mother told me that the pastor had asked her to give me a break from nursery duty and let me enjoy the service from the sanctuary that morning. That had never happened before. When the service began I felt good about being in the sanctuary with my husband and daughter. It was nice to just enjoy the preaching and not be distracted. The more he preached though the more uncomfortable I became. I didn’t really know why I was feeling this way at first. For years I had clung to the prayers I had prayed as a child for my salvation, but this day it was different. The preacher preached about Judas Iscariot, and how at the last supper just before he went off to betray the Lord who had been so good to him, Jesus told the disciples that one of them would betray him none of them suspected Judas, even after Jesus handed him the sop. John- 13:21-28
Then he transitioned his sermon from Judas to the cross. After Judas betrayed Jesus and he was thrown in prison he stood trial. Pilate could not find any fault in him. John 18:29-40 ( Note here that Pilate wanted to release Him.) John 19:4 & 6, John 19:8-16 Pilate was afraid and tried to release Jesus multiple times but the Jews would not have it. In the end Pilate gave the people what they wanted.
They ripped out his beard so that his flesh was torn from his face. They beat him with the cat of nine tails, which tore his flesh from his back and sides, until he was almost dead. Then they placed a crown of thorns on his head and hung him on a cross where he died an agonizing death. John 19:23-30
Then he went on to talk about how that was not the end. How on the third day he rose from a borrowed tomb. Matthew 28:5-7 That is the best news I had ever heard. I knew it but that day it meant more to me than it ever had before. That day I realized that I was Judas, the false witness, on my way to an eternity in hell. I also knew that I didn’t have to be. The truth of the Bible is just as true today as ever before.
That day when the preacher asked if anyone was unsure of their salvation or knew they needed to be saved I did not hesitate to raise my hand. As soon as he said come forward to the altar I ran! He motioned for his mother to talk to me and she was confused. I heard her ask him, ” Are you sure? ” She came to talk to me and asked me if I needed to be saved. With tears in my eyes, I responded, “Yes ma’am.” Then she took me through the scriptures. First she went to Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” (KJV) Then Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (KJV) Finally to Romans 10:9&10 “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (KJV)
I knew I was a sinner, something that had never truly sunk in. I knew it in my head but never really felt like it was a huge deal since everyone was. That day my heart broke over the sins I had committed against the one who loved me so much he gave his son to die in my place for my transgressions. John 3:16. I did not want his most precious gift to go unopened any longer. That day when I prayed it was different than before, it truly meant something real to me. That day I really did give Him my heart, mind and soul and I never looked back. I am so thankful that he gave me so many chances to accept Him! He did not have to.
This Hymn Really Speaks to my Heart
You Have a Choice
If you have read this far and you do not know whether you are saved or not please I urge you not to leave here still not knowing. Do you know for sure that you will go to heaven when you die, if not chances are you won’t. If you have never come to the realization that you are a sinner in need of a savior, and put your trust in Jesus Christ please consider doing that now. Along with the scriptures I have written down already Romans 3:23, 6:23, and 10:9&10, you could look up Matthew 7:21-23 ( this describes what I was before the day I finally surrendered my heart and my will to God ), II Corinthians 7:9-10 (this speaks of the conviction or sorrow that comes from realizing you have sinned against the God who loves you), Psalm 51:1-4 & 16-17 (this is a good prayer to help you call out to God for salvation, if your heart truly is broken over your sin and you are ready to call out to Him), Romans 5:8 reminds us that Christ died for us before we loved him, while we were his enemies. How can we reject that kind of love. Ephesians 2:4&5 mercy is when God doesn’t give us what we truly deserve, he didn’t have to give us His Son, but He did. Mark 8:34-38 shows us that God isn’t going to force Himself upon us, but that the the price of our rejection is our own soul. Finally Romans 10:13 We see that NOONE is excluded! Whosoever will means exactly that. It does not matter what you’ve done or who you are, if you call upon him with a sorrowful heart He will save you! Isn’t that amazing news? If you don’t have a Bible you can purchase a good one here.
Reach Out
If you are confused or need help, or if you just want to let me know that you have made the decision to accept God’s gift of salvation, please leave a comment here, or go to the contact me page and send me an email.
If you have made the decision to accept Jesus I would love to be the first to welcome you to the family! John 1:12&13
