When I was a child, Easter was about dying eggs and biting the ears off chocolate bunnies. I knew that a lot of people went to church on Easter, but I did not know why. Good Friday was just a day that banks and other businesses closed for about 3 hours in the afternoon.

Fast forward to 1978 and the beginning of my freshman year in college. I had met some people from a ministry on campus, and was grateful to have folks to talk to who weren’t drinking and partying. The day after Labor Day I met with the campus pastor from this ministry and he asked me a question I had never heard before:

“If you were to die tonight, would you go to heaven?”

That’s some question. My only answer was “I don’t know”. Growing up I had this vague sense that there was a God and a heaven and even a hell, but that most people went to heaven, except the very worst. I did not know there was a way to know for certain.

The pastor asked me what I knew about Jesus, so I told him the following:

• He was born on Christmas (I had no idea why)
• He told a lot of stories (I didn’t know any)
• He was nailed to a cross (again, no idea why)

I remember what he told me that September day in 1978 as if it were yesterday … I can take you back to the very spot at Central Michigan University. Here is what that pastor said to me:

Jesus is the Son of God, who became like us – except without sin – so that He could make the way for us to heaven.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16).

He explained to me that all have sinned (except Jesus) …

“… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

He also explained the hope that we have in Christ. That His death on the cross was the atonement for our sin … for my sin … He was without sin, so only He could make that perfect sacrifice and payment for my sin. Only Jesus could make the Way for me to be restored to fellowship with God, my Holy Father.

He told me that forgiveness and eternal life is a free gift that I only have to accept. (At this point he used his watch as an example. He held it in his hand and asked me what I had to do to accept his watch as a gift. I said I just had to reach out and take it – which I did. He then explained that God’s gift of forgiveness and eternal life could be mine in the same way – I just had to reach out and accept it. {I gave the watch back, but not the eternal life!}).

He told me about the day that Christ was crucified and what He went through for me … because of His great love for me.

“For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (Romans 6:6 – 10)

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:23)

He also told me that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day … victorious over death and the grave.

I was taking in all of this information in amazement – I had always known that the man called Jesus had been nailed to a cross, but I just thought that’s how people were executed back then and never thought much about why Jesus was nailed to the cross or that it could possibly have any significance for me.

At this point he asked me if I wanted to accept the gift of eternal life and forgiveness … a gift that was paid for by Christ’s death on the cross. Knowing the “rest of the story”, I of course wanted to accept this gift.

The words of assurance the pastor gave me that day (almost 30 years ago now) remain with me, and any time I hear this passage, I remember that moment in September 1978 when I accepted God’s gift of forgiveness and eternal life.

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10: 27 – 30)

The pastor used his watch again as an example. He placed it in one hand and closed his fingers around it, then he tightly wrapped his other hand around the first and asked me to get his watch. I of course could not do it. How much more secure am I (and all who believe) in the Hand of God.

“But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38, 39)

I know many of my readers are already part of my family in Christ, but if anyone is reading this today that like me did not know the significance of Jesus’ death on the cross or the powerful truth of His resurrection that is represented by Easter Sunday, then you need to know that God’s gift of forgiveness and eternal life is offered to you as well … you have but to receive it.

In God’s Amazing Grace …

Kerry