Jesus Christ changed my life. In late 1994, I came to that place where God works best. It was a place of hopeless desperation. I felt completely helpless to "be good enough" as a husband and father. A minister counseled me, and he confronted me with this question: "Don't you understand that you are worthy of God's love -- that Jesus died for your sins on the cross?" As I struggled with my response to his question over the next few weeks, God began changing me. It was a genuine conversion experience for me.
That was the beginning of a new life for me. I had been trying to be good and failing. From then on, I put my trust in the perfect and sufficient goodness of Jesus Christ. The truths of the Scriptures were opened to me. I now see the great themes in the Bible that tie all sixty-six books together -- everything points to Jesus Christ!
The minister who led me to my conversion talked of his own journey "on the road." It is the Way taught by Jesus Christ. I am now certain that I am on the road.
It's been over ten years since my "born-again" experience. I have attempted a few times now to put my testimony in writing, but whenever I try this format, my words remain inadequate to express the vivid reality of God in my life. I've settled on this format: a simple introduction (this section) and a very brief spiritual biography (next). I also wrote about the importance of reading the Bible: "Give Us Today Our Daily Bread." For all other evidence of God in my life, you'll have to explore my home page -- I can't articulate it any more succinctly.
I was baptized as an infant and confirmed as an adolescent. My church (Anglican) interprets from Scripture that baptism seals you as Christ's own. I have felt that protection throughout my life. I have always had faith, but I was poorly equipped. My worst stumbling block was believing the world and what it taught. The world says that Christians who proclaim their faith are hypocrites, that the Bible is irrelevant to today's issues, that you have to earn God's love, that heaven will satisfy all your selfish pleasures but that you can never be sure that God will let you into heaven and so you might as well satisfy your pleasures here on earth, and that it's alright to satisfy sexual desires outside of marriage even to the point of murdering children as long as they are still partially in the womb. There are so many lies in the world.
I was never very active in the church, and I drifted away from it entirely during high school. By college I was living almost entirely in the world; but I still held onto my faith in a weak and completely private way, and with that mustard seed of belief the Lord did not forsake me. Still, I didn't listen to Him or turn to Him for help -- instead I tried to help myself.
I drifted aimlessly in my twenties, but with the imminent birth of my oldest son in 1991, I returned to the church. My family has attended regularly since then. That was the beginning of a profound deepening of my faith. I humbled myself before God with worship, I heard the Word of God every week, I heard the Word interpreted, and I shared in the Lord's Supper. I began to let go of my selfishness as I worked on my roles as a husband and father. Finally, Jesus changed my life in a profound way.
Last Updated: 17 May 2007
Document Author: Tim Chambers, tstimony@timchambersusa.com,
http://alum.mit.edu/www/tbc 1E4AF729D5CEFFD0.