"I was smoking pot the first time I heard the gospel." - C.J. Mahaney

I WAS SMOKING POT THE FIRST TIME I HEARD THE GOSPEL

People often ask me why I'm so confident in God's grace.  I explain that my understanding of Scripture and my own conversion experience leave me with no other explanation.

God came looking for me.

I'm a Christian because God showed mercy, not because I was worthy or wanting to be saved.  No, I wasn't searching for God.  I was stoned.

It was 1972.  I was sitting in my bedroom smoking a joint when my friend Bob began to share the simple story of Jesus dying for my sins.  I'd grown up in the Catholic church and had never head the gospel.

But that night as I listened, God revealed Himself and regenerated my heart.  I believed.  The cross was for me.  Jesus was my savior.  The worst of sinners, in the midst of his sin, was born again.

NEVER FORGET

I can relate to Paul's amazement at being shown mercy.  I've lived in the same part of Maryland since I was a boy.  Hardly a month goes by that I'm not reminded of who I once was.

Before God saved me in 1972, I too, was a blasphemer.  I lived for myself and my own pleasure.  I lived in rebellion against God and mocked those who followed Him.  I spent my high school and college years deeply immersed in the local drug culture.

Sometimes, late at night, my friends and I would see out quiet, isolated places where we could come down safely from drug highs.  On more than a few occasions it was a D.C. monument.  Other times a peaceful street under thick, deep trees.  Or even the terminal at what was then a little-used airport called Dulles, where the doors stayed open long after the day's flights had ceased and we could move through the nearly deserted canyon of a building.

Someday soon I'll be near one of those place again, and the memories will flood back in.  I'll remember what I once was, and be reminded of what I now am.

Often my eyes fill with tears at the memories of my foolishness and sin.  And in the same instant, my heart will be filled with an unspeakable, holy joy.  I am no longer the same!  By the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, I've been forgiven of the countless sins I've committed.

"Blessed is the man," David wrote, "whose sin the LORD does not count against him" (Psalm 32:2).  This truth echoes through my soul, resonating in place far deeper than any drug can go.

Many people try to run from the past.  I suppose I could try to as well, by leaving the hometown that holds so many reminders of my sinfulness.  But I consider living here a gift from God.  The regular reminders of my past are precious to me.

Why?  Because, like Paul, never want to forget the great mercy shown me.

WE ALL NEED THIS

If you're a Christian, you don't need to live in the same place all your life to remember who you once were.  And you don't need a background in drugs, or any other dramatic conversion experience, for the cross to be dear to you.

Regardless of our pasts, we've all sinned and fallen short of God's glory (Romans 3:23).  My nine-year-old son Chad's life is very different from mine.  He's being raised in a Christian home.  He has been taught God's Word.  And unlike his father, he is surrounded by people in a local church who respect godliness and humility, not worldliness and pride.

But as Chad enters young adulthood, the most important thing I can teach him is that, even though he's being raised in a Christian family and is leading a moral life, he's a sinner who desperately needs the substitutionary death of Christ to be forgiven by God.

And so I'm teaching him the gospel, day by day.  I tell him that he's a sinner just like his dad, and that sin is a serious problem.  I put it in words that his young mind can understand, but I don't ignore or minimize the seriousness of sin.  Through his actions and attitudes he has rebelled against his Maker.  And this great God is perfectly holy and must respond with fierce opposition to sin.  He must punish it.

Some might find it surprising that I would teach a nine-year-old about God's wrath toward sin.  But I find it surprising that any loving person would withhold this truth from another person they love.  Because only when we understand God's wrath toward sin can we realize that we need to be saved from it.  Only when we hear the very bad news that we're deserving of judgement can we appreciate the very good news that God has provided salvation through His Son.

And this is what I hold out to my young son as the hope of his life: that Jesus, God's perfect, righteous Son, died in his place for his sins.  Jesus took all the punishment; Jesus received all the wrath as He hung on the cross, so people like Chad and his sinful daddy could be completely forgiven.

Source: Mahaney, C.J., The Cross Centered Life, Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Books, 2001, pages 12-15 and 72-73.