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From Doctrine to RealityI was saved at the age of 14. I was a good girl up to that point. I went to church regularly and everyone in my church thought I was already saved. However, through certain circumstances the Spirit was operating on my heart, giving me an uneasiness with my present spiritual situation. Finally, in a gospel meeting in 1971, the Spirit convicted me of sin. I was a sinner. Having heard the gospel since I was five, I knew the solution and immediately received the Savior.
Ten years passed and I continued going to church and doing all the right things--but again an uneasiness was stirring inside. I had had enough experience now at trying to be a good Christian to know at times it seemed impossible. I was beginning to lose respect for a God who had given me something so real at age 14, yet now seemed so distant and condemning. I threw myself into being a “cool” Christian in Dallas. One Christian friend was coaching me on how to take my first drink, and on where the good dances were. A verse popped into my head at this point, “All who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12). It made me uncomfortable but I felt nothing holding me anymore from doing all the things I had been brought up not to do.
At this time I had registered at a junior college in Dallas and received literature from 2 Christian groups. One was “Christians on Campus”. I was impressed with the title because it wasn't attached to any denominational name. I attended a meeting soon after, walking into a room with people sitting around a table, Bibles opened and smiles on their faces. The atmosphere was such that I felt my own shallowness and frivolity.
As the leader started speaking about Genesis and how Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil instead of the tree of life, I was struck that this had something to do with me. I had been trying to live the Christian life according to knowing right and wrong, good and evil. I hadn't been eating the tree of life, Christ Himself. The room seemed filled with light as Bible verses I had known all my life became full of meaning and reality.
I also found out that many of these Christians met regularly with the local church. In the meetings, each one had opportunity to share their experiences of the Word and Christ. Some things in the meetings were different from my conservative Baptist background, but I kept coming because nowhere else had I seen Christ so magnified. It was truly the fulfillment of Eph. 3:18 where I was apprehending with all the saints the “breadth and length and height and depth of Christ”.
C.D. | Back to List |
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