My Early Story (26)

 

Coming to Know Jesus – Two

 

I have known folks who can’t recall a time when they didn’t know Jesus. I have known others who can point to a time and place when they came to know Him. All I can tell you about myself is that sometime in early 1966, over the course of a few weeks, or maybe months, I came into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

 

This occurred primarily through reading the Bible. My great-great aunt Martha gave my brother Bill and me Bibles when we were quite young, and though I never read mine, when I moved in with my Dad I brought my Bible along with my other books (mostly history). As I look back, what is particularly interesting about Aunt Martha’s gift is that she wasn’t a believer, she was very much an idealistic humanistic, along the line of New England transcendentalism.

 

After I came to know Jesus Aunt Martha said to me, “You’ll get over this.”

 

One thing for sure, Aunt Martha loved me even if she didn’t understand me and I owe as much to her as to anyone in my life for many many reasons.

 

Aunt Martha once told me that she’d heard Gypsy Smith preach; who knows the seed that God placed in her heart during that meeting. She also once mentioned that she had an aunt named Rose who prayed. “Aunt Rose prayed,” is what she said. I’m sorry I never asked her to tell me more about her Aunt Rose, but I’ve often thought that I must be the fruit of Aunt Rose’s prayers.

 

I began with Genesis in my Bible reading and got bogged down in Leviticus. What to do? I noticed there were red letters in the back part of the Bible and was drawn to them. These were, of course, the words of Jesus.

 

I only had to read Mark 8:34 – 38, and Mark 12:29 – 31 once to realize the import of what I was reading. I read those passages over and over and over again, and without trying to memorize them, I knew them, they were embedded in my soul. I have probably recited them in Sunday messages, and in conversation, more than any other passages, with Galatians 2:20 a close second.

 

Frankly, the only Gospel I have ever recognized is the call of Jesus in Mark 8:324 – 38, anything else is less than the Gospel. This is what conversion looks like. Many people are converted who never say a “salvation prayer,” and many are not converted who say such a prayer. Jesus draws us in many ways, all by His Holy Spirit.