How Jesus Changed My Life

by Greg Williamson (c) 2003

"So we have stopped evaluating others by what the world thinks about them. Once I mistakenly
thought of Christ that way, as though he were merely a human being. How differently I think
about him now! What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They
are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!" (2 Cor 5:16-17, NLT)

Growing Up On False Religion

My parents divorced when I was about ten years old and my mother, having never completed
high school, proceeded as best she could to raise my older brother, my younger sister and myself
on what she could earn as a waitress in a corner cafe.

Through the influence of my (older) half-sister, I soon became involved in the Jehovah's
Witnesses. Because I was hungry for the acceptance they offered, I threw myself into studying
their teachings and never doubted anything I learned. After about five years in the organization,
however, I began to seriously question what they were teaching. Jehovah (God) was supposed to
be kind and loving, and yet he seemed more like the ruler of a foreign country: powerful but
distant and unapproachable. (Eventually I learned that the Witnesses are a cult and that they
literally rewrote the Bible to match their teachings.)

I became severely depressed. Previously a good student, I began skipping classes and eventually
dropped out of high school. I tried to commit
suicide.

Liquor, Drugs, and the Marine Corps

About that time one of the few non-Witness
friends I had told me about his plans to join the
Marine Corps and travel around the world. It
sounded great, and I decided to give it a shot.
My Mom gave her permission for me to enlist (I
was 17 at the time), and I was sent to the United
States Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot,
Paris Island, South Carolina for basic training.
From Paris Island, I was sent to Meridian,
Mississippi for training in my dual job field:
Aviation Operations Clerical/Flight Clearance
Dispatch (MOS 7041). Meridian is also where I
started drinking heavily.

From Meridian, I was sent to work at a reservists training unit aboard the world's largest naval
base in Norfolk, Virginia. Once there, it didn't take long for me to get into drinking and drugs—
and lots of trouble, including U.A., AWOL, destruction of government property, and fighting. I
(barely) made it through two years there and then was sent to the air station at Jacksonville,
North Carolina. By then the Corps was getting pretty tired of my antics, and so after a couple
more incidents they gave me an official invitation to leave, which came just one month short of
my four year enlistment.

Wasteland, Prison, and Jesus

From Jacksonville, I headed back to my hometown of Burlington, North
Carolina, got a job, and started living the bachelor lifestyle of parties, parties,
and more parties. The next two years became a blur as I went from one job to
another, headed steadily downhill.

Eventually I found myself out of work and evicted from my apartment.

That's when I decided to rob a convenience store in order to get enough
money to leave town. Using a .25 caliber pistol, I robbed both a convenience
store and a video-rental store, netting a total of $250. The police picked me up at the bus station,
and I was eventually given a 17-year prison sentence for two counts of armed-robbery.

Between the coffee, the filterless tobacco, the

marijuana, and the stress, after about 16 months in
prison I was a nervous wreck. That's when another
inmate approached me and told me about Jesus
Christ. He gave me a booklet that showed me from
the Bible God's wonderful plan of salvation and
what it means to live for Christ. God loves all of us
and wants to have a personal relationship with each
one of us. Wow! I could hardly believe that God
really cared about me.

There was one major problem, however: sin. As I

learned, all of us are born sinful and separated from
God. We are imperfect and unholy, while God is
absolutely perfect and holy. Furthermore, God's
justice demands that sin be punished by death and eternal separation from him. There is
absolutely nothing any of us can do to change the situation. It's hopeless. In that respect, the most
upstanding citizen is in the same boat with the worst criminal.

But, as I learned, God loves us so much that he made a way—the

only way—for us to be made right with him. Jesus Christ came to
earth to pay the price for our sins. That's right, Jesus died in my
place. And by turning from my life of sin and placing my faith and
trust in Jesus, God would forgive me for all my sins. He would even
give me a real and lasting desire to know and serve him.

It all sounded too good to be true! And so naturally I was a little

skeptical. In fact, I was a lot skeptical. But God got a hold of my
heart and would not let go. For two entire days I was absolutely
miserable. Knowing that I needed to open my life and heart to Jesus
but afraid of what I might be giving up (!), I told God I would give
him one year of my life, after which we would reconvene to renegotiate the contract. And so, as
sincerely as I knew how, I asked God to forgive me for my sins and for Jesus to come into my
heart and be the Lord of my life. After that, I started reading the New Testament and was
constantly amazed at what I was learning about Jesus. And I found that the more I read and
prayed, the more I could see my life changing for the better. I was actually becoming a new
person! (Within a few weeks I had completely forgotten about my "contract" with God. That's
been 15 years ago, and I've not looked back since.)

Eventually I was blessed with an inmate position at the North Carolina Governor's Executive
Mansion, in Raleigh. Along with the other inmates there, I worked a regular job during the day
(lawn maintenance) and served as a waiter during the many social functions in the evenings and
on weekends. After working there for one year, my sentence was commuted by the Governor and
I was paroled. I had served a total of five years in prison.

Another Chance
I was paroled to a half-way house for recovering
alcoholics where, among other things, I was made to
attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I also began
looking for a good church to become a part of. Eventually
I found one nearby, which is also where I met my future
wife. I knew the minute I saw Sharon that I was going to
marry her. And it only took me two years to convince
her! She encouraged me to pursue a college degree. And
so immediately after we were married I started taking
courses part-time and eventually was accepted into a
degree program at North Carolina State University. I
continued to work a number of different jobs while taking
classes.

Eventually I learned of the B.A. in Biblical Studies

program being offered at nearby Southeastern Baptist Theological College, and I transferred
there for that. Following graduation, Sharon and I moved back into Raleigh. Today I am keeping
very busy with church, job-hunting, spending time with my family (we have two small boys),
studying the Bible, writing, and maintaining my website: A Century 21 Disciple of Jesus.

The Real Miracle

My story is really not all that amazing, as
there are lots of people who experienced
far worse than I did before deciding to
follow Jesus. The true miracle is that God
loves each one of us as if we were the only
one to love, and he has done everything
necessary to enter into a real, personal,
lasting relationship with us. But true love
never forces itself on anyone. And so God
allows us the freedom to choose between
 receiving or rejecting his love. To be sure, our decision
will have profound (eternal) consequences—but it is
our decision nonetheless.

Here is what God's inspired, authoritative Word, the

Bible, teaches about our need for God and what he has
done to meet that need:

1. Everyone has sinned. "For all have sinned; all fall

short of God's glorious standard" (Romans 3:23).
2. The penalty for our sin is death. "For the wages of
sin is death" (Romans 6:23a).
3. Jesus Christ died for sin. "But God showed his great
love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we
were still sinners" (Romans 5:8).
4. To be forgiven for our sin, we must believe and confess that Jesus is
Lord. "Salvation that comes from trusting Christ—which is the
message we preach—is already within easy reach. In fact, the
Scriptures say, 'The message is close at hand; it is on your lips and in
your heart.' For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be
saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with
God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved"
(Romans 10:8-10) (From the Life Application Study Bible, New Living Translation
edition [Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1996], 1769.)

My prayer is that you will take a serious look at where you are in life.
If you are living without Christ, you are not really living at all. But
even more than that, the Bible teaches us that this life is only a stepping stone to eternity, and
that anyone who leaves this life without first having been made right with God through personal
faith in Jesus Christ will spend all of eternity in painful separation from God (see Revelation 20:10,
12a, 15).

¸¸¸
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