Post 3: The Light Cometh
Image: AI generated image of a woman in darkness being enveloped by the light of the cross penetrating through the darkness
Post Summary: In the last post, I discussed how the burden of God's conviction of my sinfulness came over my life and how that played out in my daily activities. In this post, I discuss how I finally came to the realization that what I was feeling was the conviction of the Lord and how it lead me into the soul-saving light of Jesus Christ.
Since that Tuesday 2/13/24, I was feeling particularly burdened inside, which came on suddenly that evening. In an effort to find distraction and/or relief from the unusual burden that had persisted over the prior few days, I attempted to revisit all of my vices that had at least brought even a small measure of pleasure or percieved joy, to no avail.
Fastforward to saturday evening, 2/17/24, I was lying on my bed around 7pm partaking of my typical mindless YouTube feed scrolling. This extremely random bible sermon popped up in my feed, which was dominated by pop culture gossip/scandal, cooking videos, video game content, workout and fitness content, and other non-religious content. In fact, it is worth noting that I did not even recall viewing any religious content prior to that moment so the “randomness” of it was certainly felt. The words “Holy Spirit” in title of this random video sermon immediately caught my eye as I scrolled past it. In that moment, my spirit started to shift within me, almost nagging at me to go back to what I had just left my field of vision by, so I did.
As I began to listen to the YouTube sermon that was discussing how to recognize the Holy Spirit impact on a persons life, I began to feel a tugging in my spirit to pick up my severely neglected bible. An important note here is that this is the same bible that had I had carried with me when I first moved to Seattle in the Summer of 2009. I do not even recall having picked up nor read it for over 14 years, joining the many unread books on my small bookshelf. Almost as soon as I picked up the bible however, I began to feel the smallest bit of relief from the unusual burden that had plagued me since 4 days prior. This slight relief served as confirmation that I was being lead in the direction that would point me to the truth of what had been happening over the last few days. The sermon continues, discussing the origin of sin (Genesis 3), sin's impact on fallen humanity (Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, Psalm 51:5), the death of Jesus for the sins of humanity (Romans 5:8, 1 John 2:2, 2 Corinthians 5:21), as well as the Holy Spirit's role in convicting the unrighteous of their sin (John 16:8–11) and the Spirit leading a person to repentance before God unto salvation (John 6:44).
As I continued to listen and follow along with the sermon in my bible, my soul continued stirring within me, and God's Holy Spirit was testifying to my spirit of the truthfulness of the message I was hearing (John 15:26, 1 John 5:6-8) . In those moments, it became clear to me that the “otherworldy oppression” I had been feeling up to that point was the conviction of the Holy Spirit and that God was literally breaking me down because of my sinfulness and living a life in rejection of Him (Hosea 6:1, Psalm 51:17) . God had orchestrated this “random” sermon to get my attention that He was calling me out of the carefully cultivated world of sinfulness I had grown to love.
Upon this realization, I began to weep bitterly like the same level of weeping I had experienced when God's conviction came over me four days prior. Pausing the sermon, I just continuously wept, a deep soul crushing weeping, worse than even the pain of the loss of any family members that had passed on up to that point. I cried for several minutes, loosing track of time. Then, as the crying subsided, I found myself able to get back to the sermon.
The sermon comes to a close with a call to respond to the Lord. In this segment, the pastor urges that if the listener felt that the Holy Spirit was convicting them even a little bit, that we were being called to repentance before God. He explained that repentance is a godly sorrow that leads a person to turn away from sin in pursuit of salvation in Christ (2 Corinthians 7:10). He also discussed how we should approach God in humility, confessing our sinfulness and crying out for forgiveness, mercy and cleansing through Christ's sinless sacrificial death on the cross (Proverbs 28:13, 1 John 1:9, 1 John 2:2). He also spoke of the urgency of salvation, saying that God does not promise tomorrow to anyone (Proverbs 27:1, James 4:13-14) and if a person dies never put his/her trust and faith in Christ for Salvation, then that person is condemned to God's eternal punishment in Hell because of that rejection of Christ (John 3:16-18). His final point before the prayer was that by repenting and trusting in Christ for Salvation, we would be spared from that eternal punishment (John 5:24) and have a place prepared for us in eternal joy in Heaven (Isaiah 35:10, Psalm 16:11)!
Then, the pastor instructs listeners to pause the sermon to go to God in prayer on our own as we must individually work out our own salvation with God. By this point, I was practically trembling, however God's Holy Spirit confirmed in me that I was right where I needed to be and the time was now to respond with repentance. My soul knew that every single word I had just heard was TRUE and that all this time I had been living a life that was heading straight for Hell but in my spiritual blindness I was unable to grasp this truth (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)!
Having paused the video, I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to pray so I began praying, saying out loud something like “God, I humbly come before you now, confessing my sins, and crying out for your forgiveness and mercy. You have shown me my sinfulness and I am wrecked because of it. God, please save me from my sins. Now being able to hear and believe what You have revealed to my spirit as the truth of Jesus Christ, my soul acknowledges and accepts Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord who died bearing my sins that I might forgiven. Please forgive me for all my sins against you and set me on the right path.” I do not recall all of my exact words during that prayer nor the actual length of the prayer, but rather my attitude of humility, confession and repentance before God and the general topics covered in that prayer.
In the moments as I was praying, It was like I was suddenly bathed in light and warmth, as an indescribable radiance overwhelmed me and I began to cry again, but this time, it was like tears of joy, freedom, and release from that previous conviction. It was as if Jesus Himself picked me up off of my bed and held me in His hand as I literally felt completely weightless, like I was floating on a warm, brilliant cloud in my darkened bedroom. This was forgiveness and salvation in Christ, and the confirmation in my soul knew this to be true!
After several minutes of thanking and praising God that He had just saved my soul, I was finally able to wrap up and concluded the prayer with an earnest declaration of something similar to “from this point on, God, I put my trust and faith in Jesus alone for salvation”. In that moment, I knew I had just been saved, and I knew that I was not going to be the same, though I could not know yet how things would change.
PLEASE NOTE that I am NOT saying that that one should measure their salvation based on a spiritual experience such as this nor should anyone reading this assume from this account that this is in any way a typical conversion experience, but rather I am simply describing what was happening to me personally in the moment that the Lord Jesus Christ pulled me up from the darkness and into His light.
That evening was the first time in a very long time that I had truly “rested” during sleep. In the next post, I'll discuss what it felt like that next day upon waking up a new creation in Christ.
Next Post: Post 4: A New Creation in Christ