Big Sandy Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa
Even growing up in the South (Bible Belt) there is no guarantee a person will be exposed to the gospel. I was born in Alabama but never went to church as a child or an early teen. I had no concept of God, Jesus, the Bible or anything even remotely related to religion or spirituality. That makes it even more impressive how powerful God’s Word is and how deeply the Holy Spirit can convict one of the truth of the gospel and one’s own sin.
I only started attending church when I was about 17 because it was a condition of dating the woman who is now my wife. One night I sat in the front for some reason I could not explain and for the first time I heard the message of Christ — of forgiveness, of eternal life and of God’s judgment on those who choose not to believe. I went home that night physically ill because the truth of God’s Word impacted me so heavily. The next day I went back to church and had the gospel message explained: that I was a sinner, that God loved me and that He had provided a way for me to know Him through His Son Jesus Christ. All I had to do was come to Christ by faith, trusting in what He had accomplished through His death and resurrection.
Since I had no prior knowledge of these truths the Holy Spirit must have worked overtime in order to bring someone like me to the point of salvation. While I did not fully understand all that had happened at that moment, I realized later the truth of John 14:6: “Jesus told him, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
It is not how much we know that saves us, it is the Who that we know — Christ. I have met many people who know more Bible facts than I do yet they have not come to salvation through Christ. Luke writes of Jesus Christ in Acts 4:12, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people, and we must be saved by it.” Have you trusted Christ?
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