Salvation

(Job 28:28) “And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

I was introduced to my Lord and Saviour about 22 years ago; I had just finished my National service in the South African Navy (Marines) and decided to travel abroad on a working holiday. It was during this debouched seven month period that questions on the purpose of life began eat away at my understanding on life, like never before. I cannot with any authority tell you how God in His mercy decides to bring us to a place where we see our sin and repent and find forgiveness for it. It is a mystery and the Lord Jesus explain this phenomenon like this; “the wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." When the call goes out from heaven and your name is bellowed by the almighty One, God Himself, there is no place you can hide, my advice is don’t try but rather search out truth. The truth will set you free! I can recall trying to live a life of wine, woman and song but strange and unusual things would happen. Not mystical things like a voice from heaven or angels appearing, it was just small unusual occurrences that I could not let my mind overlook them. It was obvious somebody was at work in my life although I did not know what it was at the time. It was God calling me to repentance; Let me tell you how that all unfolded; It was probably late July 1987 and my older brother was about to be married. This upcoming event brought me home a little earlier than planned. On my return the bar and entertainment area, the room where I had celebrated my 21^st birthday was now a room where people gathered to hear the Gospel. It had become a church; my father an alcoholic had stop drinking and become a Christian, my mother was echoing his sentiments with her life. My whole family without exception was now serious about Christ’s sacrifice. After much annoying persistence from the entire family to attend a meeting I found myself seated in a chair listening to a man confidentially preach about the man Jesus Christ who died for my sin. It is hard to explain how his words captivated my attention, but they where riveting to my soul, it was as if he was only speaking to me. When he concluded with his sermon he appealed to any who wanted to respond to this message, the message of life in and through the Lord Jesus and I was compelled without thought to any ridicule of those looking on to respond and my arm almost mechanically shot into the air. I was not the only one who responded but I didn’t pay them much mind. The preacher man then prayed but surprisingly after he had finished praying, I was left confused by my decision. What had I just done? So I walked over to the barrel-chested man and looked him in the eye and said, “You have just confused me, what have you done.” He looked at me with surprise and said, “Just press on brother.” What was that suppose to mean, huh? I was confuse and anxious about my decision for days and I wrestled with it looking for answers. My family endeavoured to come to my aid and reassure me that I had been saved. Let know one tell you that you are a child of God; you must have the witness of the Spirit living inside you. In other words you must just know without a doubt that your eyes have been opened and that you can see. It must be your own experience and not someone else’s. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

When it is a true conversion and God come and breathes life into you, it will be unmistakably recognisable, you will not be left guessing, and if you are supposing then my advice to you is wrestle until you are sure.

I can vividly remember how it happened for me; two days had passed after my initial response to the preachers call. I was sitting alone in my mother lounge and reading the bible and I remember praying a prayer that went something like this, “God I am not quite sure what I have done, but I do believe you sent your Son to die for my sin.” the flood gates then opened I began to cry like a baby, tears of absolute joy resonated from my soul as I cried, “I can see, I can see!” How fabulous this day had turned out to be. It was if I was sitting in a room full of total darkness and all I could make out were some shapes that looked like furniture, but then the light switch came on and I could not be sure of their detail. Someone had walked into the room and flipped the light switch. Now the furniture’s detail was clearly seen, I no longer was left guessing. My immediate reaction was I needed to tell someone, so I ran into the study, picked up the phone and dialled Greg, my mate I had travelled abroad with. My conversation went something like this, “Greg I have found the answer to life, it is in the Lord Jesus..., he responded, “huh”, “can’t you see?” I asked. But sadly he could not and so my pursuit to tell my all friends began and I am happy to say that not all rejected the message of the Gospel, some even today proclaim the saving grace of the Lord Jesus.

Once this journey begins we war with our reasoning and so we make daily decisions; it has taken awhile for me to understand what this text means, “and unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

But this is the key to walking a victorious Christian life; firstly we must fear God and His awesome brilliance and then after we have His Spirit we must depart from evil. It is through this process that our joy will overflow. Do not let people lie to you. Christ died for sin, how can we now justify living in it, if we hold to this perversion it is a lie from the devil.

I will leave you with John Pipers quote, “God is most satisfied in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

Signing off

Tyrone