My personal testimony of salvation

by Pastor Terry L. Reese

 

I was raised with a strong moral and ethical sense, emphasizing that there is right and wrong, and that God, Jesus, the Church, and the Bible were to be respected as holy things, even though we were not regular attendees of our local church.
 

Our local church was labelled the First Christian Church--as are many other Campbellite, or Restoration Movement churches. It professed to be a church of the Bible, but in fact, it was very legalistic, representing a sect that in many ways self-consciously stood aloof from the historic thought of the Reformation. It taught a hyper-free-willism, it denied justification by faith alone, and it affirmed its own particular version of baptismal regeneration (i.e., equating water baptism with the new birth and avowing that baptism is essential for salvation). One is saved through believing that Christ is the Son of God and obeying the ordinance of baptism (single immersion). One must then "keep faithful" to the Commandments of God unto death, or one would lose their salvation.
 

I obeyed the Ordinance of Baptism as instructed as a child, and felt a sensation of cleansing having performed the rite. That feeling, however, soon passes, and one is left with the hope that one is “good enough” to make the final cut when God analyzes our works and decides our eternal destiny accordingly. I felt I was basically a good person, not involved with many of the sins of my generation (e.g., drugs, sex, womanizing, etc.), and was trusting in this for redemption.
 

In my early 20’s, I chanced to watch Billy Graham on television and heard him affirm that salvation is by grace a free gift, and that we cannot earn our salvation before a holy God. We must place our trust in Christ and in His substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. I wasn’t sure I correctly understood him the first time, so I listened a second night in the series of programs, and he repeated the same message.  For the first time, I understood that Christ did something for me—He died for my sins—and that I couldn’t earn heaven through my good works or stand righteous before God on that basis. That night, alone in my bedroom, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour, repenting of my sin,  despairing of self, and acknowledging before the Lord that I trusted solely in His work on the Cross on my behalf for my redemption.