My Need for Jesus

I know deep in my heart that I need Jesus in every day, in every way, in every sense of the word. My salvation experience was so special to me. I cherish the fact that I had a close personal relationship with the Lord from ever since I can remember. I date my relationship with God back to the age of five. My grandfathers were heavily involved in ministering the Gospel. They were deacons, they were elders. My grandfather on my mother's side was an ordained reverend. The right Reverend Allen Jones, Sr.

I was always privy to hearing the Gospel preached at a very young age. My grandfather on my mother's side was a fire and brimstone preacher. I had the opportunity to go with him to church on several occasions. I heard those messages of, “You need to get right or you were going to burn in Hell forever”. I was afraid. I am still afraid of Hell to this very moment because of the way that it was preached. In my early years, I remember being involved in a Bible school, at Capital Baptist in Dover. We rode the church bus and that is the first time that I believe I made a public declaration of my faith in Christ. Not discounting my experiences with my grandfathers. Capitol Baptist was significant because it was a clear sign of my change. I went down to the altar after hearing another fire & brimstone message. Baptists loved to preach about Hell. Not sure if they still do but it was real to me.

I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart as my personal Lord and Savior. I have always felt the Presence of God on my life, in my life. I didn’t know what it was at the time but I felt Him. I have always known that I was different. Different in the sense that I did not like things that typical children liked. I never liked being afraid. I never liked horror movies or those things that were deeply horrific. I always liked giving, helping, sharing with people. This doesn't mean that everyone else who didn't experience that was wrong. This is just how God made me I believe.

God kept me from some of the things that other young people experienced. I am grateful for this. I remember at a very young age my family going to church on Dover Air Force base. My mother frequented different churches, trying to learn and understand the things of the Spirit, the ways of God and the ways of the Spirit. I always felt a call to serve in God’s house. I always understood that I needed Jesus. I always understood that my sins, if they weren't covered in the blood of Jesus Christ, would take me straight to Hell. The Bible does not lie. I'm not ashamed that I grew up this way. I'm not ashamed that the Gospel was presented to me in this way. I wish more people in the Body of Christ would have been presented the Gospel through this truth filled lens. You need to understand that your sins are what put Jesus on the Cross.

You need to understand that Jesus was innocent and He took your place. As time went on and the Bible was taught to me, I learned that without Christ, without Him getting on the Cross and dying for me, that I would have no place with God or in any type of relationship with Him whatsoever. It never bothered me to live for God. There were different times throughout my childhood and my teenage years that I received the benefit of ridicule, bullying; but it didn't matter to me because I had Christ, and I had Him on the inside of me. I remember at different points having experiences with God where I would feel His Presence overshadow me, where I would feel Him around me. I didn’t understand it. No one explained it to me. It just happened. I am not special because of this. This is just what God chose for me.

I never knew anything about the prophetic until I got older and started reading more of the Scriptures for myself. The most important thing that I experienced was being clean, feeling clean. I think people who have a salvation experience where they know that they've been transformed out of this world and into the marvelous light of Christ, they don't struggle in their walk with God like those who had an intellectual experience. They mentally assented that they were wrong and they reasoned that it would be good to serve God. They agree on principle that they deserve Hell because they sinned but God was good enough to cause them to use their brain and jumped on God’s path for truth.

I believe my experience was unique because I felt the love of God being poured into every part of my being. I couldn't explain it then. I just knew that I was different. I can't describe it in a way that would absolutely make sense to anyone. I just knew that I didn’t have a desire to be bad. I know that Jesus took my sins and threw them into the sea of forgetfulness. What I have since learned is that God has called each and every one of us to live for Him. Every one of us gets the choice to make that decision. When you look at Romans chapter 10, verses 9 and 10, it talks about confessing the Lord as your Savior, believing in your heart that he saved you, and then you shall receive salvation.

Romans 10: 8 – 13 (NKJV)

8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Tieing this together with all of the other scriptures, “If you love Me, keep My commandments. I purposed early on in my life to keep the commandments of the Lord. Now I later learned about grace and how grace was given to us because we really can't keep those commandments. We can't live the way that we're supposed to live without God's grace. As we go through our journey, we start learning how much Christ really did do for us, how much He broke the curse of the law that was upon our lives. There's no way that we could fulfill the law. Christ didn't come to destroy the law. He came to fulfill it on our behalf’s. And because of Him, I have the ability to have a relationship with my Heavenly Father.

My Heavenly Father has been the friend that has stuck with me through my darkest times, my darkest periods. He is the only one who understands me. He is the only one who understands my purpose in life. I have made the decision to serve Him because He chased after me, because He loved me in such a way that it opened the doors and removed the barriers to Him.

I don't like darkness. I'm not talking about the absence of light. What I'm talking about is the absence of God. I don't like dark things. I have never found dark things attractive or interesting. When I talk about dark things, I'm talking about things where there is an absence of the presence of God. The Word of God says that God is love. The Word of God says that in Him there is no darkness. I have found in my life that there are things that if you engage in those things, you will bring darkness into you. This is how I know the Holy Spirit has been with me. Because if I even accidentally approach those dark things, there is a check that took place within my heart. The voice of God would gently whisper, no! The removing of the presence of God upon me caused me to withdraw away from darkness.

I've had my struggles. I am in no way perfect. I was not the perfect child. I've had struggles with anger. I've had struggles with gluttony. I've had struggles with low self-esteem. I've had struggles with feeling out of place and not fitting into this world. But all of those things pale in comparison to know that I am God's son first and foremost. That is the highest calling that you could ever fulfill in your walk with God. To be His son or His daughter. I have the Holy Spirit inside of me like every believer and the word of God says that the Holy Spirit will be your teacher. He will be your comforter. He will be your friend. The Holy Spirit has been with me since I felt that transformation take place in my heart. It birthed a deep desire to be in Christ, everything that I ever knew about God became more real. The Bible became real. God became real. It is like a whole other world opened up to me. I'm grateful to God because He chose me. He handpicked me to be His son.

I've never liked religion or religious things and I've liked even less religious people. Religious people take all of the fun out of serving God. They take all of the fun out of having a relationship with Him. They come with their rules. They come with their different ways of looking like you're saved but not actually being saved. As a Believer, I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt, when God came in and cleansed me, there was a visible change upon my life. There was a visible change in my heart. There was a visible change that took place and separated me from the things of this world. The things of this world are not attractive. They have never meant anything to me. I'm grateful to God that my salvation experience was such that I know that I'm his and no one can ever, ever take that away from me.

I remember growing up and going to different youth groups, and one of the messages they kept, trying to get the youth to believe and to understand was that their salvation was secure. I'm not talking about the things that are doctrinal things that people get hung up in today but the constant thing with youth is, “I don't know if I'm really saved. How do I know? How do I have proof?” I had that proof from a very young age. And I knew when I stepped out of line. I knew when I stepped over the boundary because the Spirit of the living God left me. But He didn't leave me long because I quickly repented. I got myself right and stayed right. I lived a life or repentance.

I think today's Christians make things so hard because God is faithful and just. When we sin, He's faithful and just to forgive us. If we're quick to repent, if we're quick to say that we love Him and that we want His presence, He will always be there with us and for us. He will always be there to help us accomplish the mission that we have for Him. I know I belong to God. I know because His presence is real. His love is real, and the peace that He has placed down on the inside of me is real. No one can ever take that away from me.

I know that I'm sealed in His righteousness. I know that seal that is talked about in the Bible is on my forehead. I know this because different people who have been demonic and who have been dark have told me that they see it. I don't belong out in the world. I'm reserved. I'm set apart, and I've been working out My salvation. I've been working out my sanctification for all of these years. I'm excited about the things that God is about to do in the earth. I'm excited about all of the prophetic things and how He is going to bring His people back to Him. I know that I need a Savior and I keep that at the forefront of my heart and my mind. Because I don't ever want to get to a place or in a position where I'm prideful, where I think that I don't need God, or I think that rebellion is the way to go. Rebellion is not the way to go. Total and complete submission to Christ is what I live for, what I long for.

I remember in my early years reading the Word, taking the Concordance, studying different scriptures, listening at different sermons, and just being so happy and so peace filled. This is the life that that God wants you to be in. He wants you to be a disciple of Him. He wants you to be in His Spirit and His presence all the days of your life. That is where everlasting joy comes from. That's what salvation is. I know the basics, and the basics is Jesus died for my sins. Jesus took my place on the cross. He took my penalty, my burden and because of that I am forever indebted to Him. I lay my life down for Him because He laid his life down for me.

You know the one of my most favorite scriptures, I have so many. I think about the thief on the cross. He looked over at Jesus and he said, Lord, remember me when you get into paradise. Jesus said, you're going to go with Me. This is my paraphrase. I love that scripture because this man had done so much evil in his life that he had to be hung on a cross by the Romans. They don't put you on a cross just because they want to persecute you. They don't just treat you as a criminal because you were a good guy. You did some dirt. Here this man is on the cross with Jesus knowing that Jesus was righteous, knowing that Jesus was holy. That thief recognized the light in Jesus and began to repent. “Lord, I repent of my sins. Take me with you.” This man didn't have any opportunity to do anything good at all because he was immediately being sentenced to death. This is how I know God is good. Because He's not expecting anything from us.

Jesus didn't expect this man to do a good thing ever on this earth Yet, He knew that he couldn't because he was on that cross. Then my other favorite scripture. While we were yet sinners. He loved us. While I was yet sinning. Even before, even in my young years I was a sinner. Even before I had knowledge about what sin was, before I was even thought of God made this plan to save me and to bring me out of destruction and to keep me from going to Hell. How could you not love a God that loves you this much? How could you not love a God who is so much in tune to what you're going to do that He made a plan.

He caused Adam and Eve to eat that fruit in the garden. The fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. He caused them to do that in order to redeem us, to purchase us. You know, the price that Judas paid for Jesus was the price of a female slave. He was given 30 pieces of silver. God the Father paid the price for us through redemption. This is why I love God. This is why I can say that I will follow Him the rest of my days. Not because of how good I am, but because of how good He is.

What's your salvation experience? What do you know about the Cross and what Jesus did for you? I challenge you in this hour. If you don't know, find out. Learn about your Savior and learn why He died on the Cross for you. I need Jesus every hour, every second of every day. Without Him, I would be a mean, angry, bitter, wild fool. I would be in jail. I'm telling you the God's honest truth. I would be in jail because I would be the worst person ever. I know this in my heart but God saved me. He spared me from living in total and complete darkness. I’m in love with God. I always will. My life is His.

Blessings,

Christopher

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