I was saved as a six-year-old boy. My dad used to read a book called “Little Pilgrim’s Progress” – a children’s adaptation of the Bunyan classic – to my brother and I at bedtime. Actually, all four of us in my family were saved as dad read that book to us. There is a part about Christian going to the cross and leaving his burden of sin there.
I actually have no memory of that. I barely remember my baptism, but I don’t have a lot of memories of those early years. I struggled with whether an experience I could not remember was real, but as I grew I believe that I was genuinely saved. Like many who are saved at a youn age I went through some years of struggle and doubt until I surrendered my life to Christ just after I graduated from high school.
That’s my story.
Tell us yours.
I grew up in a wonderful Christian home where I was taken to a really good church (by the way, it was a Baptist church pastored by a Calvinist pastor). At 6 yo, I made a profession of faith because others were doing it and because I had heard all the language, I was able to answer the questions clearly but without any inward reality. The pastor must have known that something was wrong because he felt like I should wait to follow the Lord in believer’s baptism. But to anyone who asked, I was able to give an answer straight from the head.
At 13, I really made a conscious decision to NOT believe what I had been taught and to live life the way I wanted to. I was an athlete and popular and just thought that to be spiritual and unpopular was not the way I wanted to go. I still had to go to church because I lived at home and “no” was not an option, but anyone who knew me (except my parents) knew what I was. And what I was was pretty bad.
At 16, our church called a youth pastor. He saw right through me and after one youth activity in which i had been drinking (alcohol… horror… shudder), he sat me down in his office told me that I could not do that in any activity of the church. There was a lot more he said, but I wasn’t listening. But at the end of the conversation, he told me he wasn’t going to preach to me, but that everytime he saw me he would pray for me. Needless to say, I tried avoiding him like the plague because God was working in my life.
At a youth activity, he had a guest come to talk. He was everything I wanted to be: successful and rich. But every summer, he took 3 weeks off and paid for a crew of construction workers to go to a mission field and build a church. I thought he was crazy. I asked him why. I still remember him saying “If Jesus had done for you, what he’s done for me, you wouldn’t ask that question.”
God used that to put His work into overdrive. I went to church the next morning but didn’t listen to the preacher. I read through one of the Gospels (Can’t remember which one). I came back to church that night still going crazy inside.
After church I was waiting for my father to leave a meeting and I realized, for the first time that I was lost, I was a sinner. To be honest, I was afraid that if I didn’t trust Christ as Savior that night, I might never have another chance. So right there, I told God that He could have me and that as bad as I was, I wanted to be good for Jesus.
That was April 28, 1968.
Interesting. April 28 is a big day around our house. My dad was born on April 28. My son was born on April 28.
So, in case you were interested, was Saddam Hussein. Just saying…
Thanks for the story.
hey, we’re supposed to be delivering our daughter on April 28. though I may postpone now that I know about Saddham.
It is a good day – my son counteracted Saddam’s evil 27 years ago.
My family went to church when I was a child off an on. When we moved to Tennessee when I was in the 2nd grade, we stopped going. My mom told me it was because all the churches around us were Methodist and we couldn’t find a Baptist church in Tennessee. I reflect on that now and realize just how funny that was. Anyway, we moved back to Alabama when I was in 4th grade. When I was in 6th grade my youngest brother and sister started going to Children’s choir at our old church. I went to a performance they did and I was hooked. There was always something about music that attracted me. I joined Children’s choir and from there joined youth choir and started going to Bible studies, Sunday School and church.
I started to hear about the fact that I was a sinner and that my sin separated me from God. I heard that Jesus paid the price for my sin on the cross and that if I would repent and trust Him to save me, He would. When I was in 7th grade, one afternoon after basketball practice, I prayed in my room to trust Christ as my Savior.
I walked forward at an altar call when I was 13, but for the next 20 years I was a nominal Christian: Church-hopping (or not church at all), and living with no real evidences of conversion.
In 2004, in the midst of a personal struggle, I swore off God completely; deciding that everything I’d learned over the years was religious superstition or just plain garbage. For a year and a half I delved hard into self-enhancement, self-help; thinking I could actually perfect myself if I tried hard enough. I also started to live far outside the usual bounds of propriety that had kept me in my nominal Christian days.
Thankfully, by September 2005 the Lord had weighed me down with a guilty conscience and an anxious heart. On September 15th I could stand it no more and I said, “I *must* go back to God”; unsure of even what that meant in that moment. I cried out to Jesus to forgive me and help me know the truth and how to live. The Lord absolutely broke me in that time, showed me my inability, and really refined me over the next few months and took a lot of things out of my life.
I remember someone saying that in order to fix a broken heart, a good surgeon must break through a perfectly good rib cage–inflicting more damage than the original problem in the process–but in the end it is worth it. That’s what the Lord had to do; and I am so glad He did!
I could go on…but isn’t that the beauty of it all…the story of my salvation, and your story, just keeps going on!
Taken from my post found at http://jonwellman.com/2009/10/28/testimony/…
I accepted Christ in July of 1981 at my mother’s bedside. I was five years old. I felt the Holy Spirit’s tug on my heart during church one night at the small, independent Baptist church my family attended in Flatwoods, KY. I was too afraid to go up to the front with everyone watching.
A few nights later, I couldn’t sleep. I knew I needed to be saved. I went in to my mother’s bedroom (I believe my father was at work. He was a railroad engineer.). She led me to Christ. I was baptized a few months later.
I was a seven year old[?] sitting in the SB church I was raised in watching my friend about to get baptized. I do not remember what the pastor said, but all of a sudden I knew that God was speaking to me [i.e. awakening] and wanted me to follow Him and get baptized like my friend.
After the service, I was shy about what had happened, but told my friend that I wanted to get baptized in 40 days [or something like that] and he in turn let it be known [which I did not want him to do:)].
Anyway, I met with the pastor who talked with me about the gospel and in time I was immersed in the name of the Triune God.
Thank You God
I was dating a girl in high school that went to Young Life, I started attending those weekly meetings and going to her church from time to time. Became friends with several of the guys at YL, went to camp in Colorado and had one of the guys share the four spiritual laws with me, YL met Campus Crusade!
The girl and I broke up and as many young men do I wandered in the wilderness … After college I renewed my faith, married a great Christian lady and got back to Church. That was thirty years ago, I’m now a long time deacon and Sunday school teacher
I was 16 going on seventeen. I went to a large consolidated high school so unless you were the top of the heap athlete, you would not be able to play sports.
So, I joined the basketball team of our family’s Baptist church to play in the local church league (very competitive). One requirement was I had to attend a service (any service) at least once a month.
It was in one of those services (which I really didn’t mind even though I was there with an ulterior motive I enjoyed it) that I felt God was speaking to me through the preacher. I did it the “Baptist way” and went forward to pray with the pastor and seek forgiveness for my sins. That was 1974 and God has more than fulfilled His side of the bargain.
Jesus Christ paid the penalty for my sin upon the cross and granted his righteousness to me while I was yet his enemy and a twinkle in my father’s eye. 🙂
It was about the fourteen verse of “Just As I Am” that I turned to my young bride and said, “I need Jesus, will you go with me.”
I had been reading the Bible for six months and attending Church, along with experiencing the love of Christ through a young couples Bible Study.
I was twenty-three years old as I bowed my knee and heart repenting of my sins and calling on Jesus to forgive me and save me.
The visiting speaker was an older preacher from Texas by the name of Jack Brown. He had written a little book entitled: Monkey Off My Back. Jack had spent time in prison with the Bird Man of Alcatraz and Al Capone. His Christian mother had prayed for him for almost 50 years. When he became a follower of Christ, he gave his remaining years to telling his story and preaching the gospel (schools, churches, streets).
I needed to hear that kind of story because the evil one had tricked me into believing that I was too bad (evil) to be saved. I had become the youngest man in my state to be given an alcohol license at 19 years old and was part-owner and manager of a 500 seat night club in my hometown. I had grown up in alcoholism. Now, I was making money off drunks. For me, it was all about making money. The book: Think And Grow Rich … was my bible for a while in my 20’s.
After trusting Jesus, one year later, I surrendered to the ministry. Soon I was involved in a jail and prison ministry and studying for the ministry.
God helped me through college (I had not prepared) and I was awarded a full scholarship to seminary. God has taken me to many parts of the world to preach and I’ve served at the local church, associaton, and state convention level in fulltime ministry.
I praise Him for His grace and mercy! He has helped me and empowered me for over 35 years to share His love.
He is Risen! He is Lord!
I was 8 when WWII ended. Russia got the bomb shortly thereafter, and I used to lie in bed at night and hear bombers flying over the house (they were our SAC B-36’s, but I didn’t know that) and wonder if the Russians were going to bomb us and kill me.
I got scared at the thought of dying. Spent a few days moping around, not eating much, and finally, Dad asked “What’s wrong, son?” I recall a lump in my throat, a weight on my shoulders, and a hollowness inside: I said “I’m afraid of dying”.
Dad responded “Don’t you remember what you heard in Vacation Bible School … that if you believe in Jesus, when you die, you go to heaven?” I said “Oh, YEAH!” and ran outside to play (so I know it was summer, probably 1947, with me 9 years old).
The lump, hollowness, and weight had gone away instantly.
When I was in my 20’s, a neighbor invited us to Sunday School and we went, joining the church a week later. I then spent many years learning what it was that had happened to me when I was 9.
I grew up in a Church of God of Prophecy. My mom, dad, and 3 sisters attended church every Sunday. I hated church with a passion. Every Sunday morning, I would get up and beg not to go to church. I can remember one Sunday in particular (I remember because I was so happy), that it had snowed and church was canceled. I also asked one of our new pastors if we were going to start having church on Wenesday nights. He made the mistake of asking me, “Do you want to?” I replied, “NO.” He was a young man, and didn’t last long as our pastor. I’m sure I didn’t help.
As a young boy, I can remember praying every night that Jesus would save me. I prayed this every night because I knew I had lost my salvation that day. I was terrified of the Devil as well, constantly praying for God’s protection.
I was always a pretty moral guy. Although I was surrounded by alcohol and weed in school, I never tried any of it. I however believed some type of weird moralism that hinged on my ability to ask for forgiveness before I died. When I was 15, I started attending a local SB church with a buddy of mine. A couple years later after having much guilt over open sin I had been involved in, I publicly repented at a church lock-in while the announcements were being read. My young Christian years were up and down due to a lack of biblical knowledge. However, as this knowledge and it’s appropriation in my life increased, the holiness gradually increased as well. I still have a long way to go yet… I hope to raise up my children according to the Word while washing my wife in the Word as well.
I appreciate everyone sharing their stories.
I grew up on a share cropper’s farm in Arkansas, raised by my maternal granparents. Grandpa always took my sister and me to church on Sundays where the pastor was a Sovereign Grace believer, a farmer preacher who fit William Warren Sweet’s description of such in his Story of religion in America. But i didn’t believe. I had no experience of god being real. There was also the problem of sorrow and terror in the home with grandpa and grandma in conflict to the point where one morning they were threatening tomurder one another. The half-Collie, half-German Shepher thought it serious enough to go for grandpa’s throat and had to be knocked down. Later grandpa did ge saved. He saw the Lord while in the hospital, and that brought about a great change in that home, from threats of murder and cusing to peace and prayer and Bible Study at least by grandpa with grandma going around saying, “Well, I can forgive, but I can’t forget.”
By the time I was 14 and moved to St. Louis to live with my mother, I had quit going to church. In St. Louis, I rapidly became an atheist and began making converts of my friends to that emply view. But life was empy, meaningless, gray. My grandfather had influenced my sister who was converted, and she in turn influenced our mother who rededicated her life. They must hve all been paying for me, for I got with some friends who invited me to Bible Club and Youh for Christ meetings. It was on Dec.7,1957 that I attended a Youth for Christ meeting in the Lindell Bible Church in St. Louis with a young lady and a friend whose father provided the three of us with transportation. He sad something to me about God, and I answered, “O my God is the God of the wind, rain, and stars.” They all knew I was an atheist.
At the meeting I was setting in a pew, thinking I would like to go forward, and I though, “Why would I want to do that. I don’t believe any of this is true.” At hat moment I saw Jesus about 6-10 pews in front of me. He had on red and blue robes, long hair, had one hand raised like he was knocking at a door, and He was looking at me. I lost all desire to go forward. As soon as the service was over, I told my date, I date I did not feel well and wanted to go on home. I knew she would be riding back to her home with our friend and our friend’s father. I caught a ride with another friend going toward my home. I ws determined to tel no one about what had happened, because it was too embarrassing. But two blocks or so from my house, I decided to tell my mother. I knocked at her bed room door, saying I wanted to talk to her. She asked, “Are you introubl?” I answered, “No.” Then she asked, if I was sick. Again, I said no, that I hd attended YFC and wanted to talk with her. She said, “let me get my Bible.” We went into the living room and I sat down in a platform rocker at the end of the couch, and my mother set on the couch. I told her waht had happened and began to weep, feeling a burden that I had not known before tht night. My mother read some veses to me, but I do not remember to this day what they were. Then she said,”You pray and ask the Lord to forgive you of your sins.” I did what she said, and felt that burden lifted off of my heart. Then I cried tears of joy for the first time in my life. My sister came in frm her date a little lter, and I told her what had happened. She gave me a kiss on the cheek, and I returned it. Quite a change from a year or so before, when I told her to take her old namby-pamby religion and o jump out the window with it. I intended to go to church the next morning, but I sat up so late reading the Bible that I could not do it (teenagers are noted for needing their sleep), but I went tht Sunday night and made a public profession of my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and was baptized the following Sunday.
I never dreamed that I would be a preacher and that my son would be a preacher, too (he just completed 12 years as pastor of his church this very month). My sister is married to a preacher, and they havea son who is a preacher.
I thank and praise the Lord Jesus Christ for His great kindness and grace and mercy to me these 53 years 5 months and 14 days. My heart’s desire and prayer to God is for a Third Great Awakening in which the whole earth is won to Christ by the Gospel preached and witnessed. I MEAN EVERY SOUL IN THIS GENERATION AND THEN FOR A TOTAL OF AT LEAST 1000 GENERATIONS IN ORDER TO FULFILL THE PROMISES TO ABRAHAM OF A SEED WHICH IS AS INNUMERABLE AS THE STARS OF HEAVEN, THE SAND OF THE SEA, AND THE DUST OF THE EARTH. I hav never known the Lord to waste His breath. I Chron. 16:15.
I was saved at aprox 12 years of age.My life was never one that ever made sence,i was abandoned by my family,and never new my real father.I was abused in everyway,though i had one thing,i had Jesus Christ.Even though i was a child of desperation,i always new about Jesus Christ.I went to sunday school,and loved to go,it got me away from the house.Going to church was a great thing for me.I had a grandfather who was married many times,he was abusive to all his wives,and to children,he was also into witchcraft.He had a wife who is now dead,though alive in Jesus Christ,her name was lynn,i loved her so much.I caled her aunt lynn.My grandfathers third wife.She had a daughter and they named her dawn.Lynn was my best friend,we coloured together,sang,danced,laughed and she always talked about Jesus Christ to me.She went to a church called royal view in london ontario.She was crippled and beaten many times by my grandfather,and raped.Though she always kept her faith in Jesus Christ.I loved my aunty.At age 12 aprox,one night we stayed up very late,my mother and step father were out.She had christian tracks,and a bible,she took alot of time with me talking about Jesus Christ.She exsplained who He was and how much He loved me,She told me what salvation was,and how Jesus Christ died for me on the cross,and rose from the grave.She said He will come back someday.She eventually asked me,nina would you like to know Jesus Christ better?Yes i said.How aunt lynn?So she said nina i think you should start by telling Jesus Christ all the things your sorry for,then in your own words ask Him to forgive you,you must be specific child.So i bowed my head,and started praying,as i confessed to Jesuis christ my sins,i cried outloud,in my heart i felt very sorry,as i named all of them,i then felt a presence over me,a tiggling feeling,i shivered,i think i told my aunt im not sure,but if i did i know she would have exsplained that this was Jesus Christ holyspirit,He was drawing near to me.I asked Jesus Christ into my life,heart,and soul,confessing i believed in Him,and what He did at calvary.I was sincere and honest to Him.He filled me that day with His holyspirit.Today i serve Jesus Christ and im a overcommer,using my abilities to help others,in lives today.Im a asset to society,do volunteer work,and support ministries,i uphold truth,and governmental issues concerning those who suffer through sytems,i dont get paid.I write letters ect.Ive been on video,and many united way videos concerning homelessness.Ive proved mental health sytems wrong.Ive been persicuted for the name of Jesus Christ,and count it all cost.Ive overcome prostitution,cig,street drugs,elcohol,all substances,i have no criminal record.Ive been a assurity in courts,and work with crime prevention on my own time,for the safety of those who prostitute and on the streets.I ran for mayor in 2010.Im a successor.I went accross canada and have changed lives eveywhere through obedience in Jesus Christ.Jesus Christ changes lives,saves them,through us.Im 43 years of age.Ive been through every sytem abuse you could endure.I know whats going on.God is true through and through,He never lies.Hes the only life,truth and way.I proclaim awake awake oh isrialdown the streets compelled by God,to say as He dirrects.I spread joy to a world losing hope.I sing and dance.Im a threat to the governments.I know who iam in Jesus Christ.I forgive my offenders,and love my persicuters.I give all praise,honour,glory to God ,who made me who iam in Him today.He will finish His work in me protecting me to the end all the way.I desire Jesus Christ dream comes true for all mankind,that noone perish.I confess Jesus Christ a man who walked on the earth in the flesh over 2000 years ago,born of mary a vergin birth.I believe in His comming again,and the great tribulation.As for me and my houshold we will serve the Lord.Theres so much more i could say,but i just know Jesus Christ has never let me down,and never will,He is who He says He is.Hell never change.I love Jesus Christ,i love the nations.Im a visionary woman who has seen things to come,through vision given to me by God.Some ide rather not see.Glory to God.Jesus Christ is ruler with a iron cepter,the bible talks about in revelation12.I have two witnesess who are prophets as my mentors today.They have been for many years.The bible talks about such witnesess inrevelation11,one just turns out to be my biological father on earth from God today.Praise glory Honour To JESUS CHRIST WHO HEARD MY CRY AS A CHILD.LOVE YA IN JESUS CHRIST NAME AMEN AMEN AND AMEN.KNOW FLY LIKE EAGLES AND SOUR LIKE DOVES EVERYONE.