Glory to God in the Highest

“I am persuaded, the generality of preachers talk of an unknown and unfelt Christ. The reason why congregations have been so dead is because they have had dead men preaching to them. O that the Lord may quicken and revive them! How can dead men beget living children?” -George Whitefield 

I grew up as Catholic. I went to a Catholic school until I was in high school. I knew I loved the Lord and I wanted to walk in His ways. I relied mostly on what was taught to us by our Religion teachers. Looking back I can only remember learning about the Parables and the stress on praying the rosary.

When I was in college, my brother introduced me to Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone would boast.” He was in search for the truth. He stopped attending church with us and started attending a born again church. I would sometimes go with him. Since then, I considered myself born again and I professed to the world I was a Christian because I knew Ephesians 2:8-9, I prayed the sinner’s prayer, and I sporadically attended a non-denominational Christian church.

I continued going to a Catholic church only because of my parents. But deep down, I’d tell myself I am no longer a Catholic, I am now a born again Christian because I rejected many of the teachings of the Catholic Church— salvation by faith and works, adoration of Mary, confessing to a priest rather than directly to God, etc.I learned about venial and mortal sins from my Catholic school. I understood venial sins as those teeny tiny sins that even if you are guilty of committing them, you’d still find yourself in heaven. So here I am, a deceived born again living in venial sins. And they just kept piling up! Yes, I would confess my sins in prayer and yet continue in them. I compared myself to others. I would reason to God that I had a license to do this “little” sins because others were doing much, much, much worse. I wouldn’t outright say that I was righteous, but if you’d scrutinize my heart you’d learn that I was basking in self-righteousness. I was oblivious to this at that time.

When I moved to the States, I no longer had the privileges I was used to. I was now living in a simpler environment. I started with the bare essentials and this allowed me to focus more on God. I started going to a Christian church every Sundays.   Yet up until this time, I still had a distorted understanding of sin.  I tried to be as faithful as I could to my Christian duties, subconsciously thinking I could use them to bribe God into overlooking my very petty crimes.

Then we moved to Kent, WA and I started going to a church there. It was in this church where I attended a class with the purpose to reach the lost the way Jesus did. So here I am sitting in class, learning how to seek the lost to get them saved, when I came to the awareness that I was not saved myself!!! Imagine, a dead man trying to bring another dead man to life! It was that day in January 2007 I became conscious of the filthiness of every sin and it was only then I understood that ALL sins are offensive to God! I was presented with God’s Law, The Ten Commandments. I was guilty of breaking them all… every single one of them! I’ve lied, stolen, disobeyed my parents, used God’s name as a cuss word, mass murdered people in my heart. The Holy Spirit convicted me of my sins and then only then did I  fully comprehend what it meant to have Jesus as my Savior. Jesus saved me from the wrath of God by dying in my place, by taking the penalty of death, which I so justly deserved! I considered that day as my real conversion. The Lord revealed Himself and granted me repentance that day and I’ve accepted His gift of grace.

All those years I professed to be a Christian but I was living a lie. I was deceived. The Bible says, no one can see or enter the Kingdom of God unless is born again. To be “born again” means to be born of the Spirit. The flesh and its desires must die in order for the Spirit to live in a man’s heart. When God found me through His mercy, love, and grace, I became a new creation, with new desires. He sealed me with the Holy Spirit, the same spirit that lived in Christ. God took my heart of stone and gave me a heart of flesh. His laws, which were once written in tablets of stone, He wrote in my heart and mind. I follow His commandments because the Holy Spirit now leads me. I still struggle with sin, but it’s no longer habitual. And I am thankful that every time I stumble, God chastens me and His Spirit leads me to walk back in His ways.

There’s this song I really like. It’s “Who Am I?” by the Casting Crowns. The chorus goes, “Not because of who I am; but because of what you’ve done; not because of what I’ve done; but because of who you are.” And that’s just it. I am saved all because of God’s abounding grace. Thanks be to God for His amazing grace that saved a wretched like me!