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I don’t believe in God. I know God.

That may sound like a rather audacious claim.  Perhaps it seems like pride or arrogance for one to assert something so outrageous. But the above has nothing to do with me; it’s merely the  candid confession of how the Lord Jesus Christ saved my wretched soul.

I grew up a “good kid.”  I did well in school.  I went to church.  As I muddled through my teenage years and eventually hit the age of twenty, to those who knew me, life must have looked like the horizons were bright and the future was promising.  I had been salutatorian of my high school class.  I was on an almost-free ride to NYU.  I had a girlfriend.  And I had very specific and lofty goals that I had purposed to fulfill.   I did not drink, drug, or party.  I was not crawling up from the gutter of life looking for the next best thing to get me through the day.  As far as the world was concerned, I had the grades, the girl, and the goals that would have made me a success.

I had grown up Roman Catholic.  Not that that really matters–I could have grown up Baptist, Methodist, Buddhist, Atheist, etc.  I had gone to Catholic school for twelve years, been an altar boy for many of them.  As a good Roman Catholic, I always banked on this place called “purgatory”, this intermediary abode of the dead where sins are supposedly purged.  Knowing myself  a bit too well, I would have never told you that I was good enough for heaven.  Conversely, though, I never thought I was bad enough to go to hell.  I was somewhere in the middle, or so I thought.   I was banking on that purgatory to get me through.  It seemed a safe bet, until I met John.

John was an alumnus of my high school, my former speech coach, and fellow thespian on the local theater circuit.  We had done some improv shows together; he had helped me begin my work on the speech team in high school where I started to find my niche.  In short, I looked up to him in a way.  But word had gotten out that John had “got religion” or “joined a cult of some sort.”  To say the least, John had joined a cult.  But one day when walking out of the mall where I worked, I bumped into him. That meeting started something, mainly bible studies and numerous conversations about Jesus Christ, the Bible, and joining his “church.”

Thanks be to God, I never drank the Kool-Aid and joined, but the one precious thing that came out of all those meetings, visits to his pastor’s home, phone calls, and bible studies was the revelation–at least to me–that purgatory was not in the Bible.

Apart from God’s mercy on me, I don’t know why that rocked my world like it did.  But, knowing I was not good enough for heaven, and without purgatory to buffer my sins, I was faced with the grim reality that I was on my way to hell.  

In short, a sense of my own mortality began to creep over me.  I knew I had sinned; no one had to prove that to me.  Maybe I was not coming home stoned or drunk, but I knew my heart was black.  I knew the things I had done in the dark.  I knew that if I had died at that moment I would have split hell wide open.  

John’s answer to this was always to get baptized and join his “church.”  This seemed ridiculous.  “John,” I would plead, “how do I stop sinning?”  He would just console me that if I got baptized and joined his church all would be well.  But that didn’t make sense!  I had already been a member of a “church”–what was the difference in getting baptized into another one and joining his?  How would that change the fact that I was on a crash course with God’s judgment?  I knew I had lied, stolen, lusted after others.  My memories were replete with instances of rebellion toward my parents, of taking the Lord’s name in blasphemy.  And the most wicked sin of all–idolatry.  In my agnosticism, I had made myself my own god, my own authority.  I had my goals. I had my dreams and nothing or nobody was going to tell me I was wrong.  

I continued interacting with John, attending Bible studies with mounting pressure from him and others to “join.”  But I began to take matters into my own hands.  I pooled what little money I had and went to a Tony Robbins’ self-help seminar.  I thought I would find my way there.  I figured, I am smart.  I can figure this thing out.  If I set my mind to it–like Mr.  Robbins preached–I could do anything.  So I cried, and screamed, and walked on coals of fire that weekend, making goals and vowing to attain them.   They had us do this exercise where we would all shout our goals out in the main conference auditorium.  It was quite a scene–imagine several hundred adults going wild–weeping, laughing, yelling. But in that cacophony of sorts, I remember calling out one of my goals,

I want to know God.

Nobody heard me, of course.  It was lost amidst the cries of that confusing scene.  But someone was listening…

Well, when I returned home from the seminar, my mind energized and my will ready to tackle the world, everything fell apart.  The girlfriend I had had for over four years dumped me the first night I returned.  That was a rude awakening.  Then I called John, who was rather disapproving of my self-help adventures.  Needless to say, in my heartbreak and dismay, I agreed to go to Bible study with him the following night.

Maybe it was because of my bitterness or my frustration, but that night at the Bible study, everything seemed to grate on my nerves.  I felt out of place, more out of place than any of the other services I had attended before.  When we broke into groups, I could not keep myself from mocking the teacher with my friend who had come along.  I snickered.  I joked.  I thought, “This is nuts!”  The man was preaching that sin was bad. I knew that!  I walked out of that service determined never to step foot inside John’s cult again.

I walked home from the study–a mile plus trek–laughing, jeering, and mocking everything about that night, tempting God in my arrogance and pride.

The next day, a veil of despair came over me like a tangible cloud.  The laughs subsided, but the awakened reality that had been kindled weeks before about going to hell consumed my every waking thought.  I didn’t want to think about it. But I could not escape the reality that if I died at any moment, I would wake up in hell.  It was the lowest point of my life.  I could not sleep.  I could not eat.  I would lie awake in bed at night, my mind racing with the prospect that if I died in my sleep I would succumb to the judgment that loomed over me for my sins.

What made this time more horrifying was that the security blanket of purgatory had been pulled out from under me by the Holy Scriptures.  I knew I had sinned against God, and I knew I was on my way to hell. Given this problem, I began to grope desperately for solutions:  What if I pray for others to be saved?  What if I make myself a martyr?   Frantic, I grabbed an old Bible I had used for a college philosophy course and resolved to find the solution through my own study.  “I can read,” I figured.  Starting at Genesis, I began to comb through this new-found book for the way to heaven, the way out of hell, the way to be forgiven.

But the anxiety and fear of hell continued to loom.  Yes, I was reading, but I had not found a clear and decisive answer yet.

Finally, I could not take any more of the burden of sin, of the weight of guilt, or the reality of hell pressing down upon me.  I got down on my knees on a Friday night and called out to God, the best way I knew how,

God, if you’re out there.  Please show me the way…

The next morning, a plastic bag was hanging on my doorknob.  It was a Saturday.  I usually slept in on Saturday’s.  But God ordained that on this particular Saturday, I would be going out with some friends, the first one out the door that held the bag.  As I began to flip through it, my curiosity was incensed!  What was this catching away of the saints spoken of in the Bible?  What had Jesus Christ really done on that old rugged cross?

Later that same night, having come home from my day, I sat in the same room I had prayed the night before and devoured all that was in the bag. I was amazed.  I had been an altar boy for years, had flicked the nails on the enormous crucifix in the building I grew up.  But I had never realized that Jesus Christ did all that for me.

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

I didn’t have to be perfect; Jesus lived a perfect life for me.  I didn’t have to stop sinning to earn eternal life; Jesus Christ had purchased my salvation with his own blood.   And, oh, the relief in seeing that I did not need to be afraid of death because Jesus Christ had triumphed over death and hell in rising from the dead.

I remember one of the booklets said, If you would like to trust Jesus Christ as your Saviour, turn to page 19.

That’s exactly what I did. Kneeling down on the same wood floor of my room, I called upon the Lord Jesus Christ and asked him to save my soul.

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13).

My life has never been the same.

That’s how I know God exists:  because I know him.  I know his name.  I know what he’s done for me, and I know what he can do for you.

When I was a kid, my mom told me not to touch the stove because it was hot.  And, out of fear of not burning my hand, I believed her.  But one day I touched the stove, felt the heat, and stopped believing the stove was hot and started knowing it.  Why?  Because I experienced it for myself.

I had always known about God, known there was a God, heard Jesus Christ died for sinner, but when I was twenty years old I reached out and touched the warmth of God’s love and forgiveness through the gospel.  The Bible says,

O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him (Ps 34:8).

I have done that, and I am blessed.  My prayer is that my story and the materials on this site would provoke someone else to do the same.