In my sophomore year of high school, I started to drink and party. One beer turned to smoking pot. I started to bar hop and get deep into rock and roll music. Between the years of 14-24, I just loved to get drunk and party. My girlfriend was pregnant, we married and we had a daughter, Jennifer. Her mother left me shortly after that. The next three years of my life were lost years. I had no idea of my purpose in life. I played and loved baseball. I tried out for a major league, but I wasn’t good enough to make a living out of it. At age 21, I started going to different race tracks. It was then that I started gambling and betting on horses. This was the worst time of my life. I loved the high of winning and seeing your horse cross the finish line. But every time I bet, I lost 90% of the time. Even when I won, I would lose the money the next day. I would lose my whole paycheck on those Friday nights and would scrape through the week. Some weeks I would go 6 days a week. I would remember leaving the race track in 1979 with no money. I started crying out to God. I constantly would think, what is wrong with me? I didn’t realize that God was dealing with me. I know now that the Holy Spirit was showing me the way out of my mess. God was creating in me a clean heart and renewing in me a right spirit. I started hating what I was doing and just started begging God to change my life and help me. I got so sick and tired of my life style. I started hating the bar life and partying. I was tired of getting drunk all the time and being high on drugs. The gambling addiction had messed me up so bad, I never had money.
Then, one day I saw this church that I drove by 9 months earlier. I said, I am going to give up this life of sin and I am going to serve God 100%. That week-end I went to the race track that last time and had my last beer. That Sunday morning I went to that church and totally surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. I was ready to live like the apostles of old. God’s presence was guiding me and preparing me for a divine appointment with Him. I renounced all my wicked ways. I asked God to deliver me from addictions of gambling, drugs and drinking. I remember just crying and crying because God was totally changing my life. Three days later, a scripture just lifted up my heart. It said, “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation.” I used to always wonder about when people would say, “Are you saved?” I now know what they meant. Old things passed away! For me, that meant drinking, gambling, drugs. February 2, 1980 Sunday morning, Oh what a day! That was the day when I made an absolute surrender to God.
I gave my life to Jesus and I experienced a new life in Christ or Christian Testimony . Old things passed away and all things became new. I use to wonder about that phrase, “born again “what did that mean? I loved God, grew up in a beautiful Christian home, but I had no idea what born again was all about. I knew about God but to have a real relationship, I never knew. I did not know a life like this could exist. It’s been 35 years now and I have never gone back to those old ways. I now go around sharing the new and everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ. That sinner, you don’t have to sin anymore! Jesus saves from sin, sickness, and death! Jesus came to restore our lives! God Bless you as you read this and may you find God our Father through Jesus Christ by His power and the wonder working presence of His Holy Spirit. And Jesus would say to you, “Come unto me!
