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TIME FOR FELLOWSHIP |
www.timeforchrist.ca |
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Josiah NEWTON
When I was 8 years old I made a profession of faith. I tried to trust in a really good feeling that I had in church one time, and if that wasn't good enough I trusted also in a time when I had prayed a formula prayer with a radio preacher. There was no salvation experience, no repenting of sin, no trusting in Christ. I had an intellectual understanding of words like "trust", "faith", and "believe", but none of them meant anything to me beyond that point. I was not out to deliberately deceive anyone, although I was, but I had wrapped myself in religious darkness and I was blinded by Satan in my own heart. I genuinely thought that I was a Christian. When I was faced with the truth that I was supposed to have a changed life after I got saved, I trusted in the fact that I no longer openly fantasized in my mind about certain areas of wickedness. I never had a hunger for God's word, although I sometimes read it. I never prayed except when called upon in family time, at meals, or in prayer meeting. There was just no life. The lack of personal evidence didn't bother me at first because I just enjoyed myself and didn't think about it. There was no thought of God in any seriousness, no battling with sin, no temptation by the devil, nothing that would in any way suggest that I was at all a new creature in Christ Jesus.
As I
got older I began to have more and more doubts about my salvation.
There was no complete assurance at any time, only fear and torment.
The only times that I felt better was when I just didn't think about
it. I began to try to grasp at anything that I could hold onto to
assure myself that I was truly saved. I looked to men, words,
feelings, experiences, logic, anything, but nothing gave me any real
peace or calmness in my soul. For example, I took comfort in what a
preacher had said about Satan making those that were saved have
doubts, but leaving the truly unsaved to themselves. So I reasoned
that since I had doubts I must be saved, for why would they be there
if I wasn't? If someone spoke of me as if I was saved then I would
trust in that because surely they saw something in me that would
make them think such a thing. Sometimes waves of despair would come
over me and the only one that I could turn to was my dad. I would
go and talk to him and talk to him hoping that he would bolster me
up and give me something to trust or hope in, but there was nothing
there. When I honestly thought about the life hereafter I realized
that I really had no delight in going to heaven. I hoped that
worshipping God would not be all that was done for I took no true
delight in such things. I loved to hear preachers and Christians
talk about other things that we would get to do in heaven besides
worship God. I thought about meeting relatives and all the amazing
things that we were supposed to be able to do up there, but I never
looked forward to meeting the Lord Jesus Christ. When I really got
honest with myself at times, I would assure myself that at least I
had a 50-50 chance to make it into heaven given my profession and
all. Then I would try to rid my mind of such thoughts for I knew
that a Christian was supposed to have complete and full assurance of
their salvation. When ever something in my life didn't match up
with the way things were supposed to be, I wrote it all off as
doubts that Satan was bringing to me. I never knew if the
assurances that I had were from God or from Satan. I never knew if
the doubts in my mind were conviction or from Satan. Whenever
anyone said something that seemed to me to be questioning my
salvation I was plunged back into doubts and fears and torments. I
relied on what other people thought about my spiritual condition.
If someone thought I was saved then that was just one more evidence
that I was saved, wasn't it? My hope was shakily built on what was
done and said and thought, but not on Christ.
Some
verses that mean a lot to me are Ephesians 2:12-17: "That at that
time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of
Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope,
and without God in the world: [13] But now in Christ Jesus ye who
sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. [14]
For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down
the middle wall of partition between us; [15] Having abolished in
his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in
ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making
peace; [16] And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body
by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: [17] And came and
preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were
nigh.
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