The circumstances involved in each person who has ever come to Christ for salvation certainly can be very different. No doubt many have been saved after hearing a salvation message while in church, walking the aisle and were lead to Christ by a counselor. Some were saved through the direct witness of a family member, co-worker or friend. My testimony is a bit more complicated but thankfully was immensely helped and aided by a simple verse in the book of Titus.
I grew up in a Christian home, a Christian school and a Baptist church. As a young child I made a profession of faith but by the time I was a teenager I began to struggle with doubts as I came to realize my profession was very shallow and lacked any repentance or real understanding of the gospel. By the time I was 17 or 18 I knew I was lost but, because of the deceitfulness of sin, really didn’t care too much about my lost condition. I had a car, a job, some friends and was starting college. Fun times ahead!
But then through a series of divine circumstances, God began to work in my life, causing me to realize that life was short and that I did not have the guarantee that I could just get saved whenever I was ready, after I had my “fun.” I was involved in a car accident, that thankfully injured my car much more than me, that shook me to the core. But then I found I was very perplexing situation. I was at the point that I wanted to be saved but I was very confused about how to be saved. Yes, I had heard the gospel all of my life but when I would get down on my knees and cry out to God to save me, I would get up wondering if he truly just saved me. I knew God was working in my life but felt no assurance that when I called out for Him to save my soul that He was actually listening and ready to answer. For several months I struggled with this dilemma. How could I know that I was really getting saved? And then God led me to Titus 1:2, which simply reads, “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;” I had a piece of scratch paper sitting next to me as I read that and I wrote the words, “God cannot lie.” Those 3 words hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew how to be saved, I knew I had a repentant heart that was more than willing to trust Christ for my salvation. The problem was that I was not believing that Christ would save me- I was not taking him at his Word. As this truth hit my heart, I remember physically shaking as I put my faith in Christ, believing that He would save me, because He said He would. Thank God for His work in my life, and for that fact that God cannot lie!