By Dale P. Kruse

As a junior in high school I was a committed conservationist, convinced that, because of over-population and depleting resources, our world was headed for some real disasters.

After two years of preaching this problem to a world that already knew the problem, I decided that preaching the problem was not the solution. With that I decided to concentrate on molding my life according to my convictions thinking this would have a greater impact on people's lives. In the process of doing this, though, I discovered that being consistent, even with one's own personal convictions, was not an easy, if not an impossible task. For myself, as strong as my convictions were, I found that within my own strength and power, I was unable to live consistently with them.

After more than a year of walking in this frustration of the inconsistency of my own life-style, I came to realize that my problem as well as the world's problem, rather than being intellectual, was rather volitional; a problem of the heart, the will, rather than the head. How did I bring my heart into conformity with what my mind, my computer, told me was right.

As I read through the New Testament of the Bible, I came to discover that the Apostles themselves expressed this same frustration with their inability to live according to the teachings of Jesus. The Gospel of Matthew states about the Apostle's response to Jesus' teachings, "And when the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, ‘Then who can be saved?’" (Matt 19:25). The Apostle Paul later wrote in the book of Romans,

"I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in my members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from this body of death?" (Rom 7:21-24).

It was comforting to know, from one standpoint, that these great religious leaders themselves experienced this same frustration of bringing the will, their hearts, into conformity with what they believed was right in their minds. Basically they said they were not able to. As they stated in response to Jesus' teaching, . . . then who can be saved?

Jesus' response to them was, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matt 19:26).

Later in the Gospel of John, Jesus stated to His apostles that He Himself, rather than His teachings, was the answer. He said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me." (John 14:6). Therefore, if I was to accept literally what the Bible was saying, somehow the answer was centered in the person of Jesus Himself rather than His teachings.

This sounded good to me in principle, but how did one experience this truth, if it was true, in practical terms? I stumbled across the answer one day while riding my bike home from school in a state of complete inward frustration and defeat. I turned to Jesus in prayer and prayed the following prayer:

Biblically speaking, I did not realize the significance of what I was praying; but in the week that followed, changes in my life began to occur that I knew I had no power or personal influence in. For example: My mouth was a big problem. I never was able in my own strength and power to clean up my four-letter-word vocabulary that was well programmed into the computer, but this was the first place that Jesus began His work in me. A week later after I initially prayed that prayer, I got up one morning realizing that since I had prayed that prayer my mouth had been clean; and I knew I had nothing to do with it. Jesus had taken me at my word and had become Lord of my life and began to mold it Himself, without my help, into that person He had created me to be.

What was the significance and magic in that prayer that I had prayed? I later discovered the answer to this question while reading the book of Romans. The Apostle Paul stated in this book, "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." (Rom 10:9-10). From childhood, I had believed that Jesus had died for my sins and that He had risen from the dead, but I had never known Jesus as Lord until I had prayed that prayer coming home from high school one day. As soon as I surrendered the Lordship of my life to Jesus through prayer, He began saving me from myself and sin. I also experienced inward assurance of Jesus' forgiveness for my past and present sins.

I discovered through my own prayer and the changes in my life that immediately followed, that the answer to my problems and the world's problems did not lie in self-initiated, self-correcting programs whether centered in humanism or religion, but rather in dying to self-strife all together. All my humanistic and religious self-strife only led me to frustration and self-condemnation since I could not live up to the standard I had set for myself.

What did surrender to the Lordship of Jesus mean? It simply meant that Jesus did not want me to do anything about my life. He simply wanted me. Once He had me, whatever needed correcting would be taken care of by Him in His own time and way with or without my conscious cooperation. This was accomplished through my simply letting go of my own efforts and surrendering the management of my life to Jesus—His Lordship.

Since Jesus would not violate my free will. I had to open the door of my heart, invite Him in, and give Him permission to be Lord first, before He would take liberty to act as Lord of my life and bring about the necessary changes that He desired.

My life changing for the better began the day I surrendered the Lordship of my life to Jesus and put my trust in what He did on the cross and that alone as the only means of forgiveness of my sins and deliverance from the bondages that sin had brought into my life.

By Frank H. Kuder

I was brought up in a somewhat religious atmosphere, attending a church and even going to a private school sponsored by the same church from the first grade to about half of the sixth grade.

While I had plenty of exposure to religion and even though the basic fundamentals of Christianity were taught, I never came to grips with the reality of the Gospel. It did not seem to relate. It was something that happened a long time ago.

Even though I was taught about the positive aspects of the bitter and hateful, for hate was the only reality I knew.

I left that school and went to a public elementary school for six months. It was there that I met a Jewish boy who later was to find Jesus as his Messiah. I met him less than one month after I made my decision to turn from God. Little did I know that it would be through him that I, too, would come to the Savior.

I went through that school my entire junior high years and tried unsuccessfully to end my life. I was frustrated, bewildered, and confused. What was real? What was right? How can you know? What about the future? That was what I faced and thus began my quest back to God.

My high school years were full of turmoil and fear. This went on for two years. My Jewish friend and I became very close, and it was not too much longer there after that he found Jesus as his Messiah. I saw a real change in him as we spent much time together. He witnessed to me in his own quiet way. I still wondered if Jesus was truly the only way when there were so many other claims by other religions. I wanted to believe in Jesus, but I just did not have enough evidence to convince me.

One day another friend invited me to his church. During the service, they read a passage of Scripture which talked about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I knew intellectually-historically that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, but when I heard the message of Christ's Resurrection this time, I realized the significance of His resurrection, and that was, that it proved that Jesus was who He claimed to be, the Son of God, the only way to God and the Savior of mankind. But even though at that point, I came to understand this, this understanding did not assure me of my personally having eternal life.

Two years later, my Jewish Christian friend invited me to a youth service in Oxnard, California. The youth minister explained that, in order to personalize the significance of Christ's death and resurrection, you had to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. At the invitation of the youth minister, I, along with others, prayed a prayer and received Jesus Christ in my life as Savior and Lord. After I received Jesus Christ, I received inner assurance of having eternal life. I later read in 1 John 5:12 that to have Jesus Christ living inside you is to have eternal life.

The changes in my life that followed further confirmed the reality that Jesus Christ was truly in my life. For example, I loved instead of hating. I had peace, hope, and joy. My whole attitude completely changed. I had the filthiest mouth that could be found, and I knew it was wrong, but I could not stop. He took that away. I found that Jesus Christ Himself was the total and complete answer to all of my longings, desires, and problems. Six months

later, I went into the hospital for back surgery. Normally, that would have frightened me beyond measure, but He gave me complete peace and has done so through all the problems I have ever faced as he promised He would. Time would not permit me to share the many other ways my life has been changed, but I can truly testify of 2 Corinthians 5:17, Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old things passed away, behold, new things have come.

By Greg S. Hofler

Before I received Christ I was totally focused on self. What I wanted, what would be fun for me to do. I never thought about what I could do to help others, only about what they could do for me.

Then when I was fifteen, my parents enrolled me in a Christian high school. One day the noon chaple service was about Heaven and hell. At the end of the service the Pastor asked us to bow our heads and that if anyone there wasn’t sure that they were going to Heaven to raise their hand. I wasn’t, so I did.

After the service the Pastor asked me into his study and explained to me Jesus’ promise in Revelation 3:20, that if we ask Jesus into our hearts, that He will come in. This verse of Scripture states, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him, and will dine with him, and he with Me." He further explained to me that to have Jesus in my heart is to have eternal life. He then read to me from the Bible 1 John 5:11-12 which states,

"And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life." (1 John 5:11-12)

We then prayed together and I invited Jesus into my heart as Savior and Lord.

I now have eternal life and I know I am going to heaven because Jesus now lives in me. Since then Jesus has been teaching me what it means to love and care for people, what it means to "love your neighbor as yourself" as God commanded in Leviticus 19:18. Part of loving my neighbor is sharing with them about Jesus and how to invite Him into their hearts as Savior and Lord, as that Pastor loved me enough to do.