The Beginning "Yes."

I was just under eighteen years of age when I finally said "Yes" to Jesus in a way that had sticking power.  Prior to that evening of kneeling in my bedroom, I had knelt at countless altars.  There were other times when I did what I thought was necessary to accept Jesus in my life as Savior, but there never was the kind of certainty that it was accomplished until that night a few weeks before graduation from high school.  There were no bells and trumpets blowing in my room that night, but the reality experienced in those moments has never left me. 

 

When I went to bed that night, I knew for the first time with certainty that I belonged to Jesus.  I have doubted a lot of stuff over the years as I have struggled along the road of faith, but I have never doubted that there was that single moment upon which my whole life turned.  I knew that He died on the cross for me.  I knew myself as a sinner in need of Him.   And I knew that He came into my heart with undeserved grace to send me forward into the life He was calling me to embrace.  The moment of beginning can be called by a lot of names, but for me it was the first of many moments of saying "Yes" to Jesus.  I am grateful still for the grace and mercy which touched me that evening long ago.

It is hard to imagine a life without Jesus.  When I think about all the ones who have shaped my life and enabled me to become the man I have become, there is no one who has had a greater influence than this One who walked the roads of Galilee and went to the cross for the likes of folks such as me.  If I had been Him, I would have excluded me from the list of those being delivered by His merciful act of sacrifice, but He included me, even me.  "Oh, how He loves you and me, Oh, how He loves you and me.  He gave His life.  What more could He give?  Oh, how He loves you, Oh, how He loves me. Oh, how He loves you and me."