Left Wanting

So left wanting was where it was at for me. When the larger questions of life loomed, I put the thoughts out of my mind. Drugs and Alcohol are an excellent tool for altering the mind. I reasoned that everyone struggled with these larger questions so why make a big deal over it. Besides, when I weighed out the predicted results of various religions, it seemed to me that I had no choice in the matter. If, as I believed, there was nothing after death, I had no choice. And if the Muslim was right, he couldn't find out his fate until it was too late, so he had no choice. And if the Hindu was right, he would continue to be recycled, so he had no choice. The most that any man could do was try to be good and hope for the best. Other than that their fate was sealed.

Christianity is different. It starts with the premise that you can never be good enough. I liked that, because I knew it was true about me. Second, it contends that man's only hope is in God. And third, it claims that God made it possible to be with Him after death, because He sent His son to die as a sacrifice for mankind's sins.
Imagine that. By believing that Jesus is who He says He is, and willfully placing my trust in His claim, I could be guaranteed life with Him, in an eternal place where there was no evil. And He claimed that He would accept me just as I was, if I would only trust Him.

At this point I would like to quote C.S.Lewis again in his reference to Jesus' claim.

Jesus: God, Lunatic, or Evil Man

Jesus.....told people that their sins were forgiven. ......This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin.
......I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God."
That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic----on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg----or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

The choice was mine to make. I asked Him to come into my heart and my life and be my Redeemer. And He took me just as I was. He forgave me all my sins. Decades of pride and arrogance, vile thoughts, hurtful deeds, and all the other things I've mentioned. I remember being overwhelmed and afraid. Afraid of what others would think. Afraid that this might mean that I have to attend church. Afraid that being a Christian was a lifestyle I could not do. I decided not to tell anyone. I was alone when I prayed and asked Jesus to come into my heart. So, I could keep it a secret and then I wouldn't loose all my friends. I went home that night, smoked a joint and thought about what had happened that afternoon. Here I was, still a drug addict, still an alcoholic, pornography all over the house, still living like I had always lived, and yet, I was granted the same gift that a Saint would receive. How was this possible? It was possible because Salvation comes thru faith, not thru good deeds.