Salvation Is a Process

"A Time to Reflect"

Going to church does not indicate that you are saved. You may be thinking, I've been baptized, I believe that there is a God and that Jesus is the son of God, and I attend church, so I must be saved. Not necessarily. Wouldn't it be a shame if all of your life you thought you were saved, but then you died and found out you were not going to be with the Lord-and instead, you were condemned to an eternity of suffering?

Living blindly, I was on that road-the road to hell-until about age thirty-five. I had been in church for as long as I could remember. I would attend church and work in the ministries, and I was baptized and believed that Jesus was the son of God. Yet I was still going down the wrong road. I would praise the Lord Sunday after Sunday, but I did this all unaware that I was not saved.

I would often watch people in church and see them fall out, speak in tongues, and get happy and shout; I'd ask myself if this was all real. I didn't have those experiences, so I couldn't relate to their worship; to be honest, for a while I didn't recognize it as worship, because I was ignorant of the definition. Sure, I had heard it, but I wasn't taught what worship meant; there was too much preaching and not enough teaching. Therefore, my soul had acquired a preaching overdose that caused me to be spiritually sick. This lead to a spiritual death, but Jesus can raise that which is dead! He did it for me and he can do it for anyone else who has that desire.

I want you to look at my life as it began from childhood. Not every detail is highlighted, but some major events are disclosed to give you a general idea of some of the things that occurred in my life. Hopefully this will help you develop an understanding of the mistakes that were made in my life-mistakes that prolonged my destiny and caused much grief, giving you a clearer picture of why it took me so long to get saved.