SJM...My Testimony
Submitted by Chris on May 23 1999 at 12:28:51
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Dear SJM, I said that I would give you my testimony this week-end and so I will. I want to center in on a part of my story that I believe is proof positive regarding my relationship with the Lord. I hope and pray that this will help you to accept all of us as your brothers in Christ. I accepted Jesus into my heart and life When I was a young teenager. Some friends of mine were Christians and they encouraged me to go to a weekly church service that they attended. It was a worship service at the Teen Challenge program in our town. I went with them to this service for a while before The Lord convicted me and I responded to an alter call and went forward and publicly accepted Him. I was 14 or so at the time. A lot of things have happened in my life since then but God has never left me and my salvation is still as real today as it was the day I accepted Him. I am very gratefull to be alive today, sober, and a child of God. Did you notice that I said,"sober"? I said this because this is an important aspect of my life and my faith in God. I am a recovering alcoholic. My friend, I don't know what you understand about alcoholism so I will give you some insight about it. Alcoholism is a disease because it acts in that fashion in my body. It is also incurable in that science has not found a way to make a social drinker out of an alcoholic. It is also a progresive illness because once an alcoholic drinks even the smallest amount of alcohol, it sets off a chemical chain reaction in his or her body. We require more and more alcohol to satisfy our craving but, sadly, the more we drink, the more we crave the stuff. It is an ugly and vicious cycle of drinking and becoming more and more dependant upon the substance. The only hope an alcoholic has in living a normal (sober) life is to quit altogether and then abstain from ever taking a drink. We find that quiting and then abstaining from drinking is impossable using our will-power alone. That is where programs like A.A. (Alcoholics Anonimous) are vital to us if we are to live. I was hopeless while I was actively drinking. I tried to quit using my will power alone. I would "white knucle" it for a day or so but the craving to drink would be too great and I would quickly find myself drunk again. This went on from my late teens up until I was 30. I was drinking myself into the grave and saw no end other than my own premature death. It was not untill a friend of mine urged me to attend an A.A. meeting that I saw hope. I saw how this program had helped others to quit and then (more importantly) stay sober. And so I dug into this program and found out how it worked. I found out that the only way for me to get sober and STAY sober would be to allow God to do it for me. I had to use my faith in Him to achieve sobriety. So I decided to give it a try and it worked and has been working for me as long as I maintain my faith in Him and continue to grow in my faith. I am still alcoholic in the fact that I can never take another drink but now I do not have the deire to drink because I have a vital and growing relationship with God through Jesus Christ. God has done for me what I could not do for myself. Salvation has a very special meaning for me because not only have I been saved from sin, I have been saved from certain death, both physical and spiritual. I am a living miricle because it has only been by God's hand that I can live at all. Without God being a vital part of my life, I am certain that I would probably be dead right now. When I quit I was drinking a fifth of vodka daily, without an end in sight other than a slow and agonizing death (ever see a person die an alcoholic death....it's not a pretty sight.). This I why I KNOW my salvation is real. Not only am I assured by God's Word (Romans 8:16, 2 Cor. 13:5), but I have this real, physical assurance taking place in my life daily. If my salvation and the resulting relationship with God as my adoptive Father were not "for real", and if I were not continually striving for a closer walk with Him, then I know for a fact that I would either be drinking still or very dead (I think by now I would be dead, actually.). And it is God who keeps me celebate, regardless of my sexual feelings twords boys. He has given me REAL love in my heart for boys, girls, men and women,so that I can be a witness for Him. This is as far as I want to go with this post today. SJM, I do not know if this is going to help you or not but I hope and pray that it does. I will not debate my salvation with you here in this forum because I respect the principles of conduct that Bach and others have established for it. I truly believe in our forum and I grown to love and cherish it because there isn't hardly anything like it anywhere else. I hope that you can find that same respect for us as fellow Christians, and for this forum that we all hold dear in our hearts. God bless you brother. Love, your brother in Christ Jesus, Chris |