I became a Christian at the age of 14, which was nearly 40 years ago now. The manner in which this happened was perhaps somewhat circuitious. I was a regular in attendance at church and Sunday School throughout my youth. Most of these churches I would describe as the kind of non-denominational Protestant places that you would see on The Simpsons, with a Reverend Lovejoy type figure standing behind a podium giving some abstract address about God. If the Gospel of Jesus Christ was being preached in those churches, I wasn’t hearing it. Although it is entirely possible that I simply wasn’t listening, however. Thus I had some vague knowledge of Jesus and I believed in him in the sense that I believed in his existence and thus I thought that made me a Christian.
When I was 13 I became addicted to pornography. Keep in mind, this was during the 80’s when the acquisition of such material was difficult and required some creativity. Cleverly jerry-rigging the set top cable box to provide access to channels not included in the monthly cable subscription was a talent I put to frequent use.
At some point I began to get the nagging suspicion that my indulgence in pornography was wrong. Not just wrong, but sinful. I remember when this realization dawned on me, my first instinct was “Yeah, but, I probably do a lot of other stuff that’s sinful as well.” And this was no doubt true. And still is. I remain now as I was then. A sinner. Nothing more and nothing less. But this story isn’t about me. But the inherent feeling that what I was doing was morally wrong really bothered me. And so I resolved to stop. The only problem was that, try as I might, I couldn’t stop.
It was around this point that I started watching a Christian television program in the evening, The 700 Club with Pat Robertson. I still don’t know why I started watching this, just that I did. During every broadcast the show would profile someone who would share their testimony regarding their conversion to Christianity. Many of these testimonies were similar in nature, “I was addicted to drugs, I found Jesus and he delivered me from drug addiction.” “I was filled with anger and hatred and then I found Jesus and he delivered me from that and I now have peace and joy.” “I once was lost, but now I am found.”, as the song goes. At some point over the course of a couple of weeks of watching these testimonies it became apparent to me that these people were describing a Jesus that I did not know. They weren’t describing a historical figure who one meets upon death and, if you believed in him, he spirits you away to heaven. They were describing someone who was alive, today, active in the present world. They were speaking about Jesus the way they would speak about any other friend in their lives. And I realized that I needed Jesus in the same manner these people did, and that Jesus would give me the power to overcome my pornography addiction and transform me in the same way he did these individuals. So one night I remember Pat Robertson saying, “If you want what these people have, I want you to pray with me right now, wherever you are.” So I knelt at my bedside and I prayed with him and I asked Jesus to come into my life. And, he did. That was at the age of 14. But my addiction to pornography persisted.
Over the next few years I continued to struggle with pornography, all the while feeling like I had failed Christ whenever I would allow lust to overwhelm me and I would watch a video or look at a magazine. My life became a never ending cycle of giving in to addiction, repentance, and then relapse.
Along with pornography I was also rabidly consuming any/all Christian content I could get my hands on, convinced that the answer to my problem was out there somewhere. I was determined to uncover whatever it was within me that had prevented my deliverance. Perhaps I needed to pray more? Fast more? Read the Bible more? Get baptized with the Holy Spirit? What were the magic words that those other people prayed that I needed to pray? And while I loathed myself for failing God so often and so egregiously, a secret resentment towards that very same God was growing within me. ‘You sit up there judging me for every mistake I make, every sin I commit, but you don’t lift a finger to help.’ That was the attitude of the teenage me. And, of course, this is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ at all. My standing with God was not determined by my ability/inability to uphold the law, my sins had already been eternally dealt with thousands of years before I was born. When I put my faith in Christ and when I had asked him to come into my life and save me and forgive me he had done just that. His righteousness was accorded to me and his righteousness never wavers. But I didn’t truly understand all of that at the time.
Why had I come to Christ in the first place? I had come to Christ seeking power over my life, the very life I was powerless over. I wanted to be a better person, and I came to Christ so that he could make me the better person that I desired to be. But why did I want to be a better person? Because I believed that God couldn’t love me the way I was.
But Jesus Christ did not die for the person that I wanted to be. He died for the person that I was, and am. He died for me at my very worst, not at my very best. Through faith in Christ I can be transformed, but not in the manner of my choosing, but his. I told you this story wasn’t about me. And neither is yours.
The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that you are loved by God, so much in fact that he gave his own son to redeem you, to eternally bridge the gap – the spiritual gap, the psychological gap, the emotional gap – that separates you from him. If you believe God cannot love you – you are mistaken. If you believe God cannot forgive you – you are wrong. If you believe Christ cannot transform you – you are incorrect. In fact, it is Jesus and only Jesus who has the power to transform you into the person you were created to be. You cannot do this on your own, because you were not created to live apart from God, but to have an eternal relationship with God through Jesus Christ his son. This is the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And you can begin that eternal relationship today, simply reach out and pray something like the prayer below.
Dear God, I know I have sinned against you and have broken your laws. I am sorry for my sins and ask for your forgiveness. I believe that your son Jesus paid in full the price for my sins and that Jesus died for me and rose again, winning victory over sin and death. I place my faith in Jesus, and I ask Jesus to come into my life and to be my lord and savior. I commit my life to Jesus. Please make me the person you created me to be and thank you that Jesus is now my lord and savior. In his name I pray, amen.
It’s not about me. But if you have questions or prayer requests I can be reached via the email below.
davidruss@gmail.com
Let Us Reason Together 