by: Alvin Garcia
I wish I could tell you a story worthy of being written as a best-seller book. I wish I could tell you a story of a dramatic conversion, like that of Paul when he was struck blind; or of the Philippian jailer when the walls of the prison shook and the chains were let loose; like that of Martin Luther when he was almost struck by a lightning; or of Charles Spurgeon when he stumbled to a church where a parishioner told him the words of Isaiah, “Look Unto Me and Be Saved.”
My story may not go down in history or be written in annals to inspire millions down posterity. However, if there is one soul out there among millions who will turn to God and so benefit from this, then I rejoice.
Let me tell you my story.
Although baptized as a Catholic, I was brought up under the tutelage of teachers in Baptist and Methodist schools. There, everyday, we were taught to sing songs like “Alive Forevermore” and “His Banner Over Me Is Love.” You could say I grew up in a religious environment.
From grade school on to high school, I became fascinated with study of the end-times, like what would happen towards the end of the world. I could have told you what 666, rapture, the antichrist, and the tribulation meant. I would read and believe any book that I could get my hands on, including those from a religious cult that says there is no hell. Not surprisingly, I wanted to become part of that group.
Naturally, that also began my search for the “right” church. Which church or congregation is saying the truth? I remember one night when I had prayed specifically for it.
In college, while I was sitting in the grandstand in U.P., a random lady handed me an invite. And so, began my Bible studies.
As I progressed through my studies, I knew right then and there that my prayers were answered. I became convinced that I was becoming part of the right church. By God’s grace, I was baptized on September 2002.
However, though I heard the word and received it with joy, my faith did not have any root, like the rocky soil on which the seed fell. There were blasphemous thoughts in my mind that I felt I had not really been granted pardon for and cleansed from yet. I became fixated with these thoughts.
Because I figured these were “unique” sins, I had trouble opening to a brother in the church. Only my “disciplers” knew about it. Before long, I became convinced they too had become tired of hearing the same things again and again during our discipling times. Until finally, every time I was asked, I kept saying I was ok even though inside, I was losing the battle.
Slowly, God’s commandments were becoming a burden to me. I only attended worship services and devotionals just to “show up” to people. Thoughts that I was too young to be missing out on life by becoming a disciple would also surface now and then. I wanted to experience the world, even though it meant leaving God. And so, I left the church in 2004.
When I was once again in the world, I relegated my relationship with God as a thing of the past. The dog once again returned to its vomit. I went back to a life of impurity.
In 2012, I discovered I can easily access pornographic videos on the internet. Thus, began an immersion to pornography and falling into impurity almost every night. It was for me like a drug to dull life’s emptiness and apparent meaninglessness.
In my diary which I kept, I wrote about how I dealt with the emptiness of my life through this vicious cycle. I knew I had to break it, but I was powerless to do so. In the same diary, I knew that for me to really attain the peace I earnestly seek, that meant going back to the church and to the disciples once more, whom I refer to in my diary as “them.” But like the prodigal son, I knew that going back also meant letting go of these pleasures, facing humiliation, and owning up to my actions. I still didn’t want to come back even though I was sinking ever deeper into the grave of my own making. In a way, I had given up on myself (that I could ever change) and on God (that He could ever forgive and change me).
Then in September 2016 something happened to me. I was once again bothered by blasphemous thoughts that are too dark to mention. It was so severe that I was having sleepless nights for weeks on end. I couldn’t tell this to anyone because I thought I could handle it. Admitting I needed help meant shame and weakness.
When these thoughts had become too much for me, I decided to reach out to a brother in my former church to talk to him about my seemingly hopeless situation.
But even after that, there was this one night I will not forget. It was when I felt that I already went to the devil’s side and that heaven was already barred forever.
Because sleepless nights were also physically taking a toll on me, I had to finally admit to my own family that I needed help. I took time off from work and spent over a week in my sister’s house.
They couldn’t really figure out what was going on with me so I was taken to the psychiatrist and was prescribed antidepressants. Deep inside, I knew that the battle was a spiritual one as well.
I will never forget that time in a cemetery when I bared my soul to a brother in the church. Indeed, I am grateful to the brothers who have helped me to be restored in the faith. I learned that God still loves me, has never given up on me, and was calling me once again. I think He may have saved me from insanity as well.
My restoration took more than year, mostly because I felt that I was not repented yet of my sins. I thought I was not “good enough” in God’s sight yet.
It dawned on me that this was what grace really meant. That Jesus will take me as I am. In Matthew 11:28 we read,
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…
I cannot change myself, only He can do it. In Jeremiah 13:23, we also read:
“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, Or a leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.”
And again, He said in John 15:5, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing.”
I could go and on and on. These and various other Scriptures have convinced me that He will do the sanctifying. In December 2017, I decided to go down the waters of baptism once more.
With that, I want to share with you my lessons:
One, that I need to depend on what the word of God tells me and not on my own feelings and sentiments. The Bible assured me that Jesus already paid for the sins of the world from the beginning until the end of time. We only have to claim this victory. 1 John 2:2 says:
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
He Himself declared in Revelations 21:6 that “It is finished.” I have only to claim it and make it personal. And I know from there, I will have to keep the cross continually before me (Hebrew 12:2).
Amazing grace might have become a cliché for other people but not for me. I have left and still, I have been preserved me all these years. I am and will be forever thankful to God because if my life had been taken away during those lost years, I would have ended up in hell for all eternity. I am convinced of this because He does as he pleases.
In Psalm 135:6 it says,
“The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths.”
and (Job 9:12) says,
“If he snatches away, who can stop him? Who can say to him, ‘What are you doing?”
I can say truly He is a compassionate and gracious (Exodus 34:6).
My number two lesson is that I should not have left the church. I may have been apportioned a larger slice of grace because of what I’ve done, but that doesn’t mean I have not reaped what I have sown.
Galatians 6:7 says,
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows
During my years of wallowing in the mud, I have seen and experienced things which I shouldn’t have, and now they have become to me a liability, something akin to a thorn in my flesh. I am convinced that I have become worse than when I was first reached out.
2 Peter 2:20 says,
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.
And so, for a wayward Christian, leaving the church is not the solution.
Jesus is the solution.
And so, what is my hope of repentance? The verse I just mentioned will surely make me despair of life, if not for the fact that I also learned that repentance is also the work of the Holy Spirit
John 6:63 says
The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing…
I must assure myself time and again that I can win this battle in my mind because I have God’s power – the Holy Spirit – in me. In my weakness, His Spirit in me will be proven strong.
2 Corinthians 12:10 says
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
We have heard it said that God never wastes anything. When Joseph finally revealed himself to his brothers, he said in Genesis 50:20, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives”
I believe God will make use of the things that happened in our lives to turn our lives around, even our very sins. Psalm 18:28 says:
You, LORD, keep my lamp burning;
my God turns my darkness into light.
Further, I am convinced that He who makes everything beautiful in its time (Ecclesiastes 3:11) will transform someone as ugly and vile as me, like the way He would transform a caterpillar into a butterfly. He will do this to glorify His name.
Finally, I believe that it is it part of my ministry to encourage those who have never left the church. In Luke 22:31, we read:
“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you Simon that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back strengthen your brothers.”
Jesus knew beforehand that Peter will deny him three times and yet he said, “when you have turned back [or been restored] strengthen your brothers.”
That is why I serve in the ministry, not just because I consider this to be one of my lifelines, but that I want to minister to you and tell you of God’s amazing grace. I want to help bring back the sheep who have wandered from the fold. I want to tell them that it is not yet late, that God waits for them and scans the horizon longingly for each of his backsliding child.
My message to all of us is to be strong in the faith and persevere. I am still a work in progress. I still struggle with some of these thoughts, but I know, and God knows, what I have already conquered.
My challenge for all of us is to grow in knowledge of God’s holiness and love. Let us never be content with spiritual milk, but instead, ask the Lord to never quench your thirst and hunger for Him. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith and be sunk in the ocean of His love.
Hebrews 12:2 says
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith…
Do you believe that you have plumbed the depths of God’s love? It is like an ocean. It is said that God’s love transcends human understanding. Paul prayed in Ephesians 3:18 that we may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. Indeed, God’s love is a mystery we will only be able to fathom once we are in heaven. Right now, we can only kneel in humble worship.
My prayer for all of us is that we do not lose sight of it, to remind ourselves of it in the morning, meditate on it during the day, and rest on it as you sleep in the night.
In his book, Attributes of God, A.W. Tozer had written some passages that I can relate to:
I’m not a good man…I can’t go to God and say, “God I didn’t do what that fellow did.” I’ve done everything—either in actuality or in thought—that could be done. The devil himself couldn’t have thought of anything that I haven’t thought of in my lifetime. So, I was praying to God about it and said, “O God, these good men—and I began naming men who, compared with me, are good men—” they can’t love You as much as I do, for he who is forgiven much, loves much
Then he continues:
If a doctor saves a man who has only a runny nose, he wouldn’t write a book about it. He didn’t do much. The fellow would get well anyhow. But a doctor who takes a man with a brain tumor, puts him asleep and, with great care, prayer and skill, brings that man back to life—he has done something.
This man, standing before you now, is such a man – a Lazarus back from the dead.
I am closing this testimony with lines from a song that encapsulates my life:
“I thought that I was too far gone
From everything I’ve done wrong.
Yeah, I’m the one who dug this grave
But You called my name, You called my name.”