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What do you think about
Jesus Christ? Who was He? Why is it that you can
talk about any other religious leader on the face of
the earth and people will just share their own
beliefs without apprehension but as soon as you
mention the name Jesus, people become uncomfortable
and even hostile? What is it about His name that
stirs such animosity?
I was not raised in a
Christian home, and as early as I can remember, I
decided that I was an atheist. I thought the belief
in a god was without proof and thought up by people
who had a need to have explanations for everything
they could not explain away through scientific
means. When I entered High School, I became very
hostile toward anyone who claimed to be a Christian.
The whole idea made me very angry! So, I went out of my way to
debate the existence of their god with them,
ridiculing them every chance I got.
After High
School, when I was nineteen, I met a woman who
waited tables in the same restaurant that I did. We
became involved and decided to move in together. But
there were a few problems with the relationship. She
was married, she had two children, and she was a
Jehovah’s Witness. She left her husband, two kids,
and her religion for me and because of that, I
became overwhelmed with guilt. I couldn’t understand
how she could ever do what she did if she really
believed in her god.
After living together
for almost a year, we decided to get away from
Denver for a while so we moved to Fort Worth, Texas
where her parents lived. Her parents had left the
Jehovah’s Witness Organization they had raised her
in and joined a Christian Church. After being in
Texas for about a month, the guilt I had been
feeling got the best of me, I couldn’t take it
anymore. I had to get away and start over. I left
her and moved back to Denver and to my family. I
knew in my heart that what we had done was terribly
wrong and it plagued me every moment of every day! I
felt guilt for her as well. I thought that I had
caused all this trouble and I felt responsible for
her losing everything, her marriage, her kids, her
faith. What had I done?
I was only back in
Denver for a week when the phone rang. It was her on
the other end. She said she couldn’t afford to make
ends meet on her waitress pay alone anymore so she
took a new job. She went to work for a massage
parlor and began turning tricks. She became a
prostitute.
I can’t tell you how my heart
died that day when I heard her tell me what had
happened. I thought that I had caused all this to
happen to her and I was overcome by guilt again. But
this was now much worse. How could I have done this
to her? How could this happen to us? So, I packed up my
belongings and moved back to Texas believing that I
could get her out of the trouble she had gotten
herself
into.
I tried to find a job but the economy
was bad and we soon became reliant on the money she was making as a prostitute
and
the drugs we were selling.
Imagine that, I went down there to save her and
before I knew it, we were both stranded there.
Before long I got to know her boss and we became
good friends. He was the nicest guy! He had recently been
kicked out of the Christian college he was attending
because he worked at the massage parlor. The parlor
had been robbed just before I met him and his friend
had been shot to death. It was big news around town
and when the college found out that he was working
there, they kicked him out.
For the sake of
this story I will call him Robert. Robert had been a
minister for a Christian church but had gone back to
school to become a nurse. Robert was very good at
explaining his Bible beliefs and when this girl I
was with, I’ll call her Pam, was between tricks,
they would sit around and debate about the Bible and their
different theological beliefs. I would sit back in
amazement watching these two, a prostitute and the
manager of the massage parlor she worked in, arguing
and debating over who had the right Bible
interpretation! Then I would laugh at them both,
shake my head and walk away. But as my life sank
deeper and deeper into sin and drugs and everything
else that goes along with that lifestyle, the guilt
that plagued me became almost unbearable. In my mind
I had become the worst kind of person you could be! I hated her
for doing what she was doing. I hated everything
about the life we were living. And I hated myself for
becoming the man I had become, selling drugs and
living off the income of a prostitute.
But
God is able to use the worst things in our lives to
help us! As my life grew worse and worse, thoughts
of God grew stronger and stronger! I began asking
myself if He was real. And if He was real, how could
this happen to us? How had I reached this point in
my life and how could a loving God allow this to
happen?
Pam’s parents lived close by and one
day when we were visiting them, she came down with a
bad cold. They told us where their doctor was and we
made an appointment for her to go see him. I took
her to see the doctor the next day and while she was
in the examining room with him my eyes were
attracted to a bookrack off in the corner of the
room. One book in particular caught my attention so
I got up and walked over to see it. The cover
intrigued me. Two giant hands holding the earth in
place. The book said it was about the Bible, history and the
future of the world that we live in. It claimed that
God knew all things from the beginning and that He
was able to predict with astonishing detail the life
and ministry of Jesus Christ. As I stood there
reading the back cover, the doctor came out into the
room, noticed that I was looking at the book and
told me I could take it with me if I wanted to. I
thanked him and took the book home with me.
For the next three days I did nothing but read that
book. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t eat, I just read. I
couldn’t put the book down until I finished it!
Seven hundred pages in three days. I had never read
a book that size before (mostly comic books and a
few newspapers). Now thoughts of a living God began
to consume me. Was this all real? Was Jesus really
God? Did He really give up his life for the human
race? Did He really love me? I just couldn’t imagine
how a moral God could love a person like me, the
worst kind of sinner!
Months went by and I finally got to the point where
I couldn’t take the stress anymore! Nearly two years had
passed. One day, Pam and I were at Robert’s house in
Keene, Texas and I was begging her not to go to work
that day. I told her she needed to move back to
Denver with me. She said no and took off in my car leaving me
stranded in that little town with nowhere to go. I freaked
out! I thought I was going to lose my mind. I found
myself pacing up and down the side streets of
that small town, crying and swearing and yelling up
at God! If anyone saw me that day, they had to think
that I was crazy.
I was going out of my mind
with shame and guilt, and fear and hatred for who I was. I
hated her for what had happened to us. I hated
myself for who I had become. I was on the verge of a
nervous breakdown. Crying, and screaming, and yelling at God,
“How could you do this to me? How could you let
this happen to us?” Crying and screaming at the top
of my lungs I looked up to heaven and did something
I had never done before, I cried out and said, “Jesus, if you are real then please help me! I can’t
take this anymore.” Then I said something that was
totally beyond me, “Jesus, if you are real, then
please touch my heart and help me!” At that very
moment, as the words came out of my mouth, I felt,
as if it were, Christ’s finger reach inside my body
and touch my heart! There was no doubt that it was
real! I can still feel it today. I stood there in
amazement for the longest time. I stopped crying,
and I
stopped yelling and swearing and a great peace fell
over me. I was in shock! I stood there looking into
heaven, breathless. I could feel in His touch the
love He had for me. I knew that very moment that He
was real and that He cared for me. Even me! And I
cried up to Him in heaven and thanked Him, over and
over and over again!
Jesus changed my life
that day. I was no longer an atheist or agnostic. I knew He was
real. I knew He died for me and that He was alive
again. I knew He was God! I just didn’t know what it
all meant for me. Pam and I went our separate ways
and I went home to Denver and began to
study about every church I could find information
on. After studying for about six months what the
Christian churches around me believed, I found
myself going to a local Church to visit. I
filled out a visitor card and asked for a visit from
the pastor. I sat in the back of the church and
found myself crying again. I was still consumed by
what had happened in Texas. I would, at times be
overcome by guilt. I still didn’t understand what
the true gospel was. The pastor came to visit me and
after carefully studying the Bible for another six
months and studying all the facts for its
reliability I made the decision to be baptized.
My whole life had changed! When I was growing up
everyone around me did drugs. Drugs were everywhere.
When I moved to Texas, what I saw was far worse than
anything I could have imagined before. I watched as
the people around me threw away their lives. I was
able to see up close what a life of drug addiction
could do to a person. Addicts know nothing but their
addiction. They live their lives for their next
high. You can’t help a person who doesn’t want to be
helped! But a person can find help, and freedom from
all kinds of addictions if they really want to be free.
God used many things to bring me to that point
in my life. A disgusting life consumed in sin. Two
people living the same lifestyle as me, arguing and
debating over who had the right Bible
interpretation. A doctor and his bookshelf. All the
different books about Christianity, both for and
against. The countless people that God brought into
my life at the right time that He used as tools to
deliver me from my life of sin. Now I had been given
a new life and born again!
What is the
gospel? What is it about the life and teachings of
Jesus Christ that has changed so many people’s lives? John 3:16 says,
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and
only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not
perish but have eternal life.”
God loves you
and has a plan for you. “The Lord is not slow in
keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He
is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish,
but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)
But we have to understand some things first. We are
all sinful.
Romans 3:23 says, “for all
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And because we have all sinned, we are
all born separated from God and deserving of death. Romans 6:23 says, “For
the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is
eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The God of heaven
created us! He owns us. That gives Him the right to
say how we should live our lives. But God is a good
and loving God too! He hasn’t left us without hope.
In the third chapter of the Book of Genesis, Adam
and Eve screwed it all up for everyone. They disobeyed God and
sinned. Ever since then God has been calling us all
back to Him. Then, 2,000 years ago, God came in the
person of Jesus Christ to show us a better way to
live. God
loved us so much that He allowed His “one and only”
Son to come to earth to show us just how much He
loves us. Jesus came to earth and lived a perfect
life. Hebrews 4:15 says, “we do not have a high
priest who is unable to sympathize with our
weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in
every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.”
Then, to seal the deal, Jesus died on a cross in our
place. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his
own love for us in this: While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us.” Imagine that, Jesus
took our place in death so we could have a new life.
Jesus wasn’t left in the grave very long though,
1 Corinthians 15:3-8 says, “For what I received I
passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ
died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that
he was buried, that he was raised on the third day
according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to
Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he
appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers
at the same time, most of whom are still living,
though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to
James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he
appeared to me [Paul] also, as to one abnormally
born.”
That is the good news of the gospel!
What we could never do because of our fallen sinful nature,
Christ did for us. Jesus died in our place, was
resurrected on the third day and gave us the promise
of a new life in Him. Yet, He will never force us to
follow Him, we have to accept His free gift.
John 1:12 says, “Yet to all who received him, to
those who believed in his name, he gave the right to
become children of God”. We have to receive the
grace of God into our lives through faith, Ephesians 2:8-10 says,
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through
faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift
of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For
we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to
do good works, which God prepared in advance for us
to do.”
Once we receive Christ
into our hearts as our Lord and Savior, leader and
forgiver, we are born again (see John 3:1-8) and
given a new life with Christ leading the way.
When we believe the gospel and accept Jesus
Christ into our hearts - our lives will begin to
change! God pours out His Spirit into our lives and
He begins to transform us into His image. Romans 8:1-4 says,
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ
Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from
the law of sin and death. For what the law was
powerless to do in that it was weakened by the
sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so,
he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the
righteous requirements of the law might be fully met
in us, who do not live according to the sinful
nature but according to the Spirit.”
You can
have that life too. God loves you! More than you
can possibly imagine. He only wants what’s best for
you. Would you like to take the next step and accept
Jesus Christ into your heart today? You can! Just
ask Jesus to be the forgiver and leader of your
life. Nothing you have done is too much for Him to
forgive, nothing! I know, and so do the millions of
people throughout the ages who have put their trust
in His finished work on their behalf. Jesus will
forgive you! He wants to forgive you. He wants to be
the Lord of your life. All you have to do is ask
Him.
You can know right now that you have
eternal life! 1 John 5:11-13 says, “And this is the
testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this
life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he
who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
I write these things to you who believe in the name
of the Son of God so that you may know that you have
eternal life.” Did you get that? We can know for
certain that we have eternal life! And that life is
in God’s Son.
Once you have done that, you
can have the same assurance that the Apostle Paul
had when he said, “For I am convinced that neither
death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither
the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39).
Will you stumble and fall again? Yes, but Christ
will pick you up, tell you everything is still okay
and begin working in you to make you into His image all over again.
And
that is good news!
Bill Fritz
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