Bill Anderson

What Will You do With Jesus?

While I do not remember the date or the year, I remember it was a day that changed my life forever.

I had come to understand that I was a sinner and needed a Savior. I had just started 10th grade. I remember hearing about, understanding, and not surrendering to His love. I know now, but didn't understand then that I was deceived by the devil into believing tomorrow or the next day or the next year would be just fine. [The devil doesn't care if you believe Jesus is everything God's Word declares Him to be. All the devil wants is for you not to respond to those truths. He (the devil) says "Think this over before you act", or "Do you realize what you will give up?" or "Tomorrow will be soon enough", or "Do you really believe all this talk about Jesus?", etc., etc. ... and it is all lies.] So, I continued to hear about God's love and not respond for the next several years. I grew up, married, and had three children by the time we moved to a new home in California. My wife encouraged me to go with her as she took the children to Sunday School and church. I had a Sunday School teacher who really loved the Lord and I saw in him happiness and assurance of God's love that I knew I needed.

My Pastor and Sunday School teacher at that time had a very positive influence on me, but I still chose to believe some other time would be just fine. Life was too much fun, there were too many things to do, too many things I couldn't do if I was a Christian.

Then a visiting Pastor spoke one Sunday, which was shortly before Easter, on the passage in Matthew 27:11-26 where Jesus was on trial before Pilate. Pilate knew Jesus was not guilty as charged, so he offered to release Jesus or Barabbas (a notorious prisoner) and the crowd shouted for Barabbas to be released. Then Pilate said "What shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?" The crowd said "Crucify Him". The Pastor closed the service with this question ... "What will you do with Christ? If He is not your Lord and Savior, what will you do with Him ... accept Him or crucify Him?" I left the service that day without surrendering my heart to Christ. However, God in His grace, mercy and love is a God who is long-suffering and patient. He is a God of second chances and He used that message to allow the Holy Spirit to work in my heart, for the next several days, all I could think about was the question "What will I do with the Man called Christ?" Some days later as I struggled with the deceitfulness of the devil and the love of God, I just surrendered. I simply said, "Lord I don't know why You would want me, but if You do then, I am Yours". The struggle was over, the peace and assurance was mine. The things I had thought were important no longer mattered ... the things I had thought I couldn't do if I were a Christian ... well, what I found I no longer wanted to do them. So there I was, in my early thirties. I had said and done many wrong things. I had been silly, hard-hearted, and very, very selfish, but on that day I became a child of the King. That doesn't mean I haven't made mistakes and even foolish decisions since then, but God's love, His mercy and grace, which I willingly admit that I cannot completely understand, is real. His forgiveness is guaranteed, when we ask in faith, believing.

The Bible says, in Romans 10:9, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved."

God in His wisdom gave us our minds to know about Him, our hearts to surrender in love to Him, and our will by which we can choose to follow Him. My prayer for whoever might read this is that your choice will be to follow Him.