JESUS WILL TAKE YOU JUST LIKE YOU ARE AND LOOK WHAT YOU GET?...

John 10:28-30  “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

My memory takes me back to the Sunday morning of August 11, 1968. Phil and I was asked to attend church, we had not seen the need to get involved with this thing called church. Our lives were lived carelessly, to say the least. Church had not been anything that we wanted to go near. And further more, I had been hurt by some words someone had said about my lifestyle as a teenager, so I held that against all things that had any association with that community.  We “owned” our lives and lived it as we wanted.

But, one day our world came to a sudden halt, we hit rock bottom.  Over night we became two hurting people, hurting terribly with no one to go to or anywhere to turn, stopped right there and it was very messy. 

Our dear friends Lamar and Sandra reached out to us. I remember telling Sandra all about our collapsed lives and the pain we were feeling, we both had come to the end of ourselves.  On the other end of the phone, I heard her words.  She said, “I know what you need, you need to go to church with us Sunday and find answers”. That phone call was Saturday and the next day we were going to church, for the first time.  We had to find the “proper clothes” to go to church, kind of like when Adam and Eve realized they were naked and made their clothes, we felt just like them. Phil borrowed a suit from a neighbor and I put something together and we went to church for the first time. 

Rev. Harold Bowe preached the sermon, I don’t even know what it was about or what he even said, but at the end it was like his words were like a strong clap of thunder, a loud sound that got our attention.  It was as if we had been in a deep sleep and awakened to hear him say, “JESUS WILL TAKE YOU JUST LIKE YOU ARE”.  And to make it clearer, he walked out from behind the pulpit and to the edge of the platform, for a good picture for us to see.  Standing there, with a smile and his arms opened wide. It was like Jesus was standing there saying those words, using his mouth and arms, inviting us into The Kingdom of Eternal Life.  It was a Divine Appointment!

Moved by the invitation, we walked out from the fourth row and to the Pastor.  The first words out of my husband’s mouth was, “We don’t know who this Jesus is, but we want to know more about Him”.  Pastor asked one of the deacons, an insurance salesman named Dewey Martin, to show us this message.  He walked us around to the steps of the Baptistery; we three sat there and he showed us from the Bible how Jesus made it possible to have Eternal Life.  My husband and I made the decision to receive Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior that day.  It was the beginning of a New Life, a Never-Ending Life!  Little did we know how things would change, giving us hope.

Since that day 43 years ago, “That Jesus” my husband said we wanted to know more about has never let us down has never let us down and we did get what this verse says, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

If you stopped by while surfing the web and you are feeling like you could have written our story with your name in it, He can help you just like He did us. 

All I can say is.....

       “JESUS WILL TAKE YOU JUST LIKE YOU ARE”....