s t o r y || I want to start this collection of memorials off with the most important moment in my life. The moment that I believed in Jesus and thus, became a child of God. During my early years as a church kid, something, somehow, took place. I became very good at being good. I would overhear my friends’ parents telling them that they should be more like me. Then, in my early teen years, the questions were posed to me and other teenagers, “If you died today, would you go to heaven, and why?” So I thought, “Would I go to heaven?” And I quickly thought, “Yes!” And, “Why?” Well, honestly, I was at church four times a week, I memorized the Bible, quoted, sang, preached it; and other people were now Christians because of it. If anyone was going to heaven, it was me. And then, one Saturday morning in October when I was 14, the teens of the church met up to knock on doors, tell people about Jesus, and give out gospel tracts. But, before we went out, our youth pastor said, “You’re going to meet people at the door and ask if they would go to heaven when they died. They’re going to say yes because they are a good person, or just not as bad as other people are.” As he was saying this, it hit me. I was that person at the door. I thought I would go to heaven because of this wonderful list of good things that I had done. But, the Bible says, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.” The Bible teaches that nobody can earn their way into heaven. The only way is by trusting Jesus to save you. As the most faithful and “spiritual” teenager in our church who was on his way to tell other people how they could go to heaven when they died, I would have died that day and gone straight to hell. But that morning, the mighty hand of God moved. I put my faith in Jesus. That day I was saved by grace through faith. I’ve made a lot of regrettable decisions in my life. This is so far from one of them.
s t o n e s || This is a gospel tract, much like the ones we would have been handing out the day I got saved. This tract says, “Read this! It might change your life.” The good news of Jesus did nothing short of just that. It changed my life.
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