My Conversion Led to a Relationship with Jesus

My conversion was a unique, personal experience that brought me into relationship with Jesus Christ and has guided my entire life. Being Baptist, I experienced the salvation tradition of someone praying the sinner's prayer with me at age nine and being baptized. I had made the decision to step out of the pew and walk the aisle to where the pastor was. I knew this was what one did as I had watched it many times and had it explained to me in Sunday school. I knew I meant it, but later realized I needed to affirm the experience as real and to know just what it entailed.

I sat in church at age sixteen not listening to the pastor, but wondering if the decision I'd made earlier was right for me. I was reading Bible verses that intrigued me. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No person comes to the father but through me." And "I give you a new command, love one another. I have loved you, so you must love each other. All people will know you are my disciples, if you love each other." If I were going to come into God the father's presence through Jesus Christ, I must follow Jesus' example. I must love other people just as he had loved them. My mind went immediately to the most familiar verse in the world, "God loved the world so much that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but will have eternal life." Also, "There is no greater love than that of a man laying down his life for his friends." Jesus loved people and was willing to give his life for them. I realized I must give my life in love for others.

Then I remembered this verse "What is the great commandment?" Jesus responded: "Love the Lord God with all your heart, all your soul and your entire mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." To accept Jesus as the way, truth, and life, I must become like him in sacrificial love. This was the love he had for God and mankind. It dawned on me that this wasn't ritual or tradition. It was a relationship with Jesus and I wanted it. For the second time in my life, I stepped from the pew and walked down the aisle.

*All scripture is paraphrased from memory.