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I have this pressing need to share the Gospel with you.

I grew up in what would be considered a normal family. I had a mom and dad that seemingly loved each other and grew up alongside my five siblings. We went to church every Sunday and Wednesday nights, and all seemed well.

When I graduated from High School in 1999, I joined the US Marine Corps. Later that summer, I went off to bootcamp. I had a pretty normal career in those early years. I served in the Infantry and began to live “my own life.” I was a kid that grew up thinking I was on my way to Heaven. Why wouldn’t I? My dad was a Preacher and I knew the Bible. However, there was something different in my heart. Once I joined the Marine Corps and began to live my life on my own, church went out the window.

Several years passed by as I took up drinking, got married, deployed to Iraq in 2003, and then had a son. Shortly after my return home from combat, I began to drink heavily, and I would get angry with my wife and my life. Life was spiraling and my Marine Corps career was coming to an end.

In 2004, I became a father, and outside of my career in the Marines and my son, life held no importance. The drinking grew and the anger deepened as I struggled with PTSD from my time in combat.

In mid-2004, I sat on the edge of my bed with a .45 caliber pistol in one hand and an empty bottle of alcohol in the other. I was ready to quit. I was ready to pull the trigger and end my life that was filled with anger, bitterness, and hate. The only thing that stopped me at that moment was knowing I loved my son and did not want him to grow up without a father. I began to seek counseling, but then my wife was pregnant again and in May 2005 my daughter was stillborn. Her death was the result of medical malpractice. Here I was, a 23-year-old man, with a dead daughter, a growing son, a marriage falling apart, and a life I had grown to hate.

Between May 2005 and December 2006, I had contemplated suicide at least 5 more times. Therapy wasn’t helping, and my Marine Corps career was being forced to end due to an injury I had sustained. My life was over, I thought.

In January of 2007, I was due to be discharged from the Marine Corps and my wife and son were across the country. I never knew if I would see them again. Out of respect for my parents, who I was staying with at the time, I went to church. It was the same one I had grown up in, and I was putting on a front.

One evening service, the Evangelist spoke about God’s grace. The light bulb came on in my heart and I trusted Christ as my Savior—for real this time. Growing up in church was not going to get me to Heaven. Rather, coming to the understanding that my sin was sending me to Hell, that Jesus loved me enough to die for me, then accepting Him, and repenting of my sins is what was going to save me.

That night, the peace of God came over me and I slept well for the first time in years. My life changed. My marriage was repaired, I found a new career in the U.S. Army, and never contemplated suicide again or drank a drop of liquor since.

When I woke up that morning after trusting Christ, I felt such incredible happiness and peace like I had never before experienced in my life. I am not the same person I used to be, and I try to live every aspect of my life to the glory of God. Today, I am a Preacher of this same Gospel, and the Lord has given me twin daughters in place of the one that we had lost. I know I don’t deserve the gift He has given me; the only thing I truly deserve is destruction for my wickedness.

I want to get this message of the Gospel out to the world because I really feel like the time is running short. There is a great falling away of the church that Jesus said would happen in the Scriptures and the church is failing in its mission to reach out to people.

“What must I do to be saved?” is the question the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas. Paul and Silas answered with the Gospel: they replied, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:31). The Gospel is all about God’s grace. It’s simple, but many stumble over it because it goes against our desire to do something to save ourselves. Rather, it is Good News because Jesus has done it all—it is His person and work a person must look to and believe.

Why must I be saved?

1. Understand that we deserve the wrath of God because of the guilt of our sin.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18).

“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).

“And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10).

2. Understand the consequences of our sin:

(A) Death

“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).

“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned … That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord … For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:12, 21; 6:23).

“I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:24).

(B) Condemnation

“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved” (John 3:17-20).

"And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification … Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Romans 5:16, 18).

I hope that reading this will bring you closer to God and that you will pray to Him and, if you are unsaved, ask for forgiveness.

The Bible says in Isaiah 38:17, “Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.”

True peace is found in trusting in Jesus Christ and asking Him for forgiveness of sin. Further in Isaiah it says in verse 20, “The LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the Lord.”

My friend, I pray that you will take to heart what is written here.

If it were not for what Christ did for me, I would most likely be dead from taking my own life. Yet, because of Christ, I am now a Pastor, have been married for over 20 years with 3 grown children, and daily rejoice in the peace that surpasses all understanding. Please, call on Jesus today.

May God Bless You.

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