Time to Testify

I would like to take some blog space for a moment, put down the conversation about the emergent church, release the weapons against the purpose driven movements, and just completely look full into the face of my Lord and give myself wholly to Him in testifying worship.
I was such a sinner, so dedicated to my own pleasure and completely unconcerned about my soul and the Creator of the universe. I wasn’t seeking anything but the next night’s festivities and how to top the mind altering state of the former party. I surely wasn’t aware that I was deservedly on my way to a Christless eternity of justified suffering and callously ignoring the only escape provided by the Son of God. And then one day, one glorious but inconspicuous day, the Holy Spirit cracked the door of my heart ever so gently and I for the first time in my life pondered the claims of Christ and my situation.

And in March of 1975 I embraced Jesus with a committed faith that I never knew was available. Now those of you who were raised in the south have no idea what it was like to grow up outside the Bible belt and never to have heard the gospel. So the term “good news” does not touch the hem of the garment of the inward exhilaration that comes with realizing that there is life eternal and it is for whosoever will. And when Jesus goes from a religious and historical figure to a living and transforming Savior and Lord the change is enormous and somewhat overwhelming.

So today I want to testify that Jesus, the Son of the living God, is by comparison the only thing that has ever happened to me in my life. I am still amazed that heaven awaits me and life is eternal. I can never get over how I was saved and that who others knew me as has died and the man that most know me as today is surely imperfect but a transformed man from the former one. Jesus, simply Jesus, is the love of my life and because of His love I can love the other people that God has brought into my life.

But there is nothing on this earth that can be deemed worthy of comparing with the Lord Jesus, He is incomparable. I love my wife of almost 29 years, I love my three children, I love my two grandsons, but the love I have for Jesus is beyond words. So I praise Him, I worship Him, I Spiritually prostrate myself before His Graciousness, and I testify to anyone who will listen, Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He is before all things, He is above all things, He has made all things, and that in all things He must receive the preeminence. Halleluiah to the Lamb, the Author and Finisher of my faith, the Suffering Substitute Who took my sins upon His own body, and Who continues to work in and through me to His own glory, to Him I say Halleluiah.

I testify that my worthlessness and His worthiness met and in that meeting grace birthed faith and faith birthed a new creature who some say is me, but in a mystery, I died and this life is now Him. I hope that by His continuing grace and power I will reflect the glory that only comes from Him and in so doing He can use me as a conduit to testify of Himself which is His ultimate desire and He has also made it mine.

Halleluiah and Selah.