The Day I accepted Christ as my personal savior.

I can still remember the day that I made a conscious choice to accept Jesus as my savior.  I was 13 years old.  I was sitting in the pew right next to my dad, as I had done ever since I can remember, and something compelled me to get up, walk down the isle toward the front of the church and tell everyone including God that I accept the truth that Jesus is the son of God, He died on the cross for my sin and that he rose from the dead with all power, leaving with us the Holy Spirit to guide us.  I knew that I loved Jesus.  From a young age I have always felt the presence and love of God. The adults who loved me, including my parents kept hinting that I was reaching an age of responsibility and that I should make the choice to publicly confess my acceptance of Jesus Christ.  And although I believed in God, I had no clue what any of that meant.  I joined the church that day because that is what I was raised to do.  I grew up in the Baptist Church so shortly after I accepted Christ, I was Baptized.  I can still remember the freezing cold water as the Pastor dipped me down under the water and very eloquently taught on the symbolism of what had just occurred.  I still had no clue.  I understood what was being taught with my head, intellectually,  but there was still no REAL connection with my heart, nor an understanding of how to apply this supposed life changing event to my everyday life.  

I would venture to say that many of you have had a similar experience.  You have accepted Christ (at least publicly)  but still feel disconnected.  But you continue to come to church and participate in Youth activities at Church because your parents insist that you do.  Please note that your parents are showing you the greatest show of love by keep you in a Christian atmosphere.  The problem is that often time we as parents introduce you the Church but don't really introduce you to Jesus.  There is a distinct difference.  Because of this, I went to church, sunday school and Bible study faithfully while still living the same way.  The most important change had not yet taken place. The change that needed to take place for me to truly be saved and to be a Christian had to take place in my heart.

My prayer for you today is that you ask Jesus to change your heart.  Ask Him to change how you feel about others.  If you have any anger, hatred or malice toward others (regardless of what they did to you), ask Jesus to remove it and help you to love them as He loves you.  If you are mean spirited towards others at school because you are popular and the other group of kids are not.  Ask Jesus to change your way of thinking.  Ask Him to change your heart.  

I will share with you in another post the defining moment of my heart change.  I had a lot of anger and hatred in my heart and I literally can look back now and see how God systematically melted all of that hatred away.  He could have done it at any time.  But He did not do it until I asked Him to........