When I was only six years old, I had a Sunday school teacher who was very concerned for the young children in her class. She consistently told us about our need to trust in Christ to save us from the eternal punishment for our sin and to save our earthly lives from the trouble sin would bring us. She told us of Christ’s never-failing love, and she told us that He was knocking at our heart’s door, asking to come in, and that if we would trust in Him and love Him, He would come into our lives and change us so that we would become like Him, and He would dwell in us till He took us to heaven.
At the close of each class she would pray with us that the Lord would work in our hearts and minds to bring us to Him. Then we would all sing together:
Into my heart, into my heart,
Come into my heart, Lord Jesus;
Come in today, come in to stay,
Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.
This we did—Sunday after Sunday—until I turned seven years old. Then I moved to another town and away from my teacher, but I never forgot her words, her prayers, or the song she sang with us.
They stayed with me day and night. I can still picture the dirt road I walked along to school, two or three strides behind my brother and his friends, thinking over the things my teacher had said about Christ: how I should love Him and obey Him; how I was sinful; how He was calling me and waiting for me.
But I didn’t feel like anyone was calling me. I didn’t feel sinful. I had trouble thinking of my real sins. Sometimes, to keep my parents from getting upset, I might lie. I didn’t always obey my parents, and I often got mad at my brother and sister, but I thought these were normal things, not sin.
Then one night my parents sent me to bed early because we had company coming. He was a friend of my parents, but I considered him a “special friend” of my own. So after he came and sat down at the kitchen table to talk with my parents, I sneaked out of my bed, out of my bedroom, and into the hallway just out of sight of the table, and listened. There I sat for over an hour while my parents, who loved the Lord Jesus, and my special friend, who was also a Christian, talked about the Lord.
I don’t remember what they said, but I remember how I felt. Frightened. Sick. They didn’t say anything I hadn’t heard before, but this time the Holy Spirit spoke to my soul.
The next morning I told my mother what I had done and what I had heard. I asked her what I should do. I knew the terms: “Accept Christ,” “Ask Him into your heart,” “Put your trust in Christ,” “Be saved” and “Come to Him.” But none of these seemed to answer my question. None of these seemed like the “how” that I needed for my “what to do?” They all seemed too easy or too intangible to grasp.
Then my mother told me that if I said “yes” to Christ deep down in my heart and really meant it and believed what He said, He would save me. That I understood.
At that time my thinking changed. I no longer thought of how Christ was calling me, or if He was calling me, but when I would say “yes” and allow Christ to lift the weight which had suddenly settled on my young shoulders.
It was as if every day Christ would ask me, “When will you let Me in? When? When?”
And I would say, “Not yet!”
I don’t remember how long this went on, but it seems like it was weeks until one Sunday morning in May when we were singing a gospel song. Suddenly, I couldn’t say “no” to Him anymore. I just said “yes” to the Lord.
I can’t describe the relief I felt in that moment. But that isn’t what has proven Christ to me. In the twenty years since then, I’ve known much loneliness and sadness, but I’ve always been able to turn to Him for the deepest comfort. I will spend eternity with the King of kings, but since that day in May I’ve found my richest happiness in my relationship with Christ.
He has given me more joy, more peace and more hope than I’ve ever had in a relationship of any kind with anyone. He has been the center of my life, and He has never failed me.
As He called me, He is calling you. It is true that the Lord Jesus said, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,” and “The wages of sin is death,” but He also said that “him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” I urge you not to reject Christ, but to cast “all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.” Say “yes” to the Lord of lords!