The following is a short and sweet version of my testimony. I’m working on a longer one, but due to time constrains, this will have to do for now.

There have been countless testimonies over the last 1,980 years of people who came to believe in the system of religion known as Christianity. These people have had what they called a life-changing experience that would forever alter the way they interacted with the people, the world, and most importantly, their own inward motives and thoughts about how they saw themselves.
Many people see religion as something to be avoided or a crutch to be leaned on. I was, at one time, one of those people. However, my encounter with Christianity would forever change my life. To begin with, I considered myself a young successful man of the world. I had a live-in girlfriend. I was played drums in a rock-n-roll band. I had a good job that paid the bills and a little house in an out-of-the-way area of our town. As far as I was concerned, life was good. Little did I know the way I lived my life was about to change.

I had always considered myself an atheist, not so much because I did not know that there was a God, but because I was enjoying the lifestyle I had chosen to live. At that time, playing drums was one of the biggest reasons to live for me. Unfortunately, the band I was in broke up, and I had to go searching for the next big musical project that was going to make me a successful musician. I loved playing music.

To begin this search I answered an ad in the Atlanta based paper, “Creative Loafing.” The ad was for a drummer in a Christian band. That in itself caused me to hesitate, but I decided to call because music was what I wanted to do for a living. When the day came to meet with the band, I gathered my things, including a demo tape that I had made with the guitarist of my last band and drove from LaGrange to Atlanta to make the meeting.

The meeting went well, and I remember the name of the person I spoke to, Mark White. During the interview, he asked me if I knew Christ. I was compelled to say “no.” I really didn’t want to be a part of religion so much as I wanted to play drums. I remember one thing that Mark said, “When God takes the veil off your face, you will see the world as it really is.” It was at that moment that something changed in me. I didn’t realize what it was at the time, but something was different. Over the next three days, I would come to understand what the Bible said about the human condition and agree with its stance. The Bible makes a pretty bold statement in Romans 3:23: “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (ESV) If this was true, I had to define a couple of things here. One is “What is sin?” and the second is “What is the ‘glory of God’?

The apostle John states that, “All wrongdoing is sin,” (1 John 5:17 (ESV)), but for an analytical person like me that’s not enough. First John 3:4 states that “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.” (ESV), or for our purpose here, “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” (KJV) What law? The Bible points to the Law of God, the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20:1-17. So sin would be the transgression or breaking of God’s Law. God’s Law states that I should not “bear false witness against your neighbor” (ESV) in verse 16, which is another way of saying that I should not lie. It also states that children should obey their parents (verse 12) and not take the Lord’s Name in vain (verse 7). That is called blasphemy which includes “G.D.,” “J.C.” and “Oh my G–”. I thought that I could console myself in the fact that I had not committed adultery or murdered anyone. However as I looked more closely at the Scriptures, I noted Jesus said “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery” (ESV) in Matthew 5:28 and John states in first John that “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.” (ESV) Needless to say, I realized that I had failed miserably at keeping God’s Commandments.

What is the ‘glory of God’? Simply put it is His divine standard witnessed to in His Law. He is completely holy and without blemish. There is no darkness, no turning shadows in Him. That is why the Bible refers to Him as light; He is completely pure and devoid of any sin or wrongdoing. The Bible also calls Him the just Judge and that He is: “and God is angry with the wicked every day.” (Psalm 7:11 (KJV))

If this is true, I thought, what was is the answer to man’s situation? It is stated in John 3:16 that “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (ESV) and in Acts 17:30, 31: “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed; and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead.” (ESV) What God wants is men are to repent (turn from their sins) and place their trust (or belief) in Jesus Christ for their eternal salvation.

After realizing all of this and becoming convinced of the Scripture being true, I knelt down in my little house and confessed my sins to God in prayer and repented of them (which means to turn away from those sins and others, to call them what they are, and to stop doing them). I can’t testify to being “perfect,” especially as this world defines perfection; however, I can testify to this: I’m not the angry young man I use to be. I try to treat my wife with great love and care. I try to be peaceable with everyone as best I can. My whole life has been renovated from a selfish, self-centered, young, arrogant man to a life of trying to please the Lord in everything I do. I still deal with sins every day. However, I’m not the person I was ten years and by God’s grace, in ten years I won’t be the person I am today.

One note here: we can’t keep the Law, it is there to show us we need a Savior, that Savior is Jesus Christ and none other. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)