It was going to be a major construction project; that much was certain. I wasn't sure what I would build, but I had all the materials I could use: a pile of sticks, rocks, and tons of red dirt, along with assorted cast-offs from around the neighborhood. As for equipment, there were two trucks, one with the capacity of a full quarter-cup!
It was early in my seventh summer, and I had some serious playing to do. No surprise, then, that I hardly noticed when the pastor of our urban church pulled up to the curb and got out of his car. His hearty greeting drew an absent-minded response. I barely recall the incident.
Nor do I recall much of what passed between us when I was called into the house so he could talk to me. My mother can still give a detailed description of our conversation. I know that it seemed to take an awful lot of time, while my project waited impatiently outside. Mom tells me that he led me down "the Roman Road," a method of evangelism still popular even today. All I remember from it was him leaning me backwards in his large hands, to show me how to go through baptism. The next Sunday, it happened much as he had demonstrated in the dry run.
Eventually, I did commit my life to Jesus Christ, and I have vivid memories of that event. Just less than two years later, I began to experience that inner turmoil and misery that Protestants refer to as being "under conviction." It was in the country, a different church, and a different pastor. I responded in the only way I knew, by coming forward for the altar call. There was talk, and there was prayer, but no relief. At the next worship service, I came again. And the next, and the next, and so on, for several of weeks.
The pastor was almost as troubled as I, for he knew that I had "been saved and baptized" already. He opined that perhaps it was Satan telling me to go forward. A reasonable guess, since my regular appearance at the altar was troubling to just about everyone in that little country church. I think they frankly dreaded the up-coming two-week revival. I steeled myself to ignore what had by now become an almost audible command, "Go forward, boy!" at every altar call.
Near the end of the first week of services, I could take it no longer, and strode down the center aisle once more. From the cramped choir loft behind the pulpit, the pastor's wife watched me. Suddenly, she leaned over to my mother next to her, and whispered the exclamation, "That boy isn't saved!" She wasted no time in coming down to meet me.
There was no memorized plan of salvation, no walking me verbally through a prayer to receive Jesus. She said little more than that she knew things weren't settled between me and God. She told me to kneel beside her where she sat on the front pew, that I should bow my head, and talk it over with Him. When I was sure it was settled, I was to take hold of her hand.
I remember it as if it had happened just yesterday. In the crashing waves of conflicting emotions, I could think of nothing to say to God. I remember thinking I would give anything and everything for relief. Though it seemed like hours, I know it took only a few seconds. That presence behind and beside me at every altar call was suddenly inside me! No words, no conscious thoughts, just a presence. The emotional storm was still raging, but I wasn't facing it alone anymore.
I took hold of the lady's hand, looked up at her, very nearly dry-eyed, and smiled. She rejoiced and hugged me. The next Sunday, I was duly baptized again. This time, I knew why I was there.
Since that day, can't recall a time when the waves weren't washing, and the storms weren't blowing, at least somewhere nearby my soul. Indeed, a few years after that, I came dangerously close to nervous breakdown. This time, I knew it was the hosts of Hell howling in my ears. Again, I found relief in another step of commitment. I set aside my pursuit of science and math, and committed myself to the ministry.
It was while attending classes at Oklahoma Baptist University, in preparation for that commitment, that someone worded it so clearly for me. At one of the weekly scheduled chapel/assembly gatherings there in Railey Chapel, a guest speaker I remember as Dr. Starkey verbalized my subconscious. After telling us a little of his ministry from the pulpit of a large urban congregation in Washington, DC, and as the unofficial chaplain of the Washington Redskins, he began the heart of his message by declaring the title of this article: the Bible doesn't say "Invite Jesus into your heart." What it does say, repeatedly, is that we are to commit ourselves to Him, in so far as we know how. As a response to that commitment, He promises to come into our hearts, in the Person of the Holy Spirit. From that point on, He will work within us to produce the kind of changes that make us over into the image of Himself.
I suddenly realized that, for the decade between my first step of commitment to Jesus, in that little country church, up to that moment of revelation in Railey Chapel, I had never once "invited Jesus into my heart." Yet, for all those years I knew that He was there. I also knew that I suffered a great deal of discomfort telling others to invite Jesus into their hearts, without knowing why it bothered me. With a near obsession, for the week following Dr. Starkey's message, I spent every spare moment searching the Bible for any phrase that even resembled "invite Jesus into your heart." I found whole chapters telling us to commit ourselves to Him, and whole chapters describing His promise to come and live in our hearts if we do commit to Him. There was nothing about inviting Him.
[Revelation 3:20, "I stand at the door and knock" was a message to the Church, not to the Lost.]
Perhaps if we spent more time telling people about commitment and promise, there would be fewer "conversions" like my first experience, and more like the real thing.
Ed Hurst
September 2000
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