My testimony... (part 1)

Quickened!

I'm not going to spend any time on my time before the second birth; it is sufficient for this post to simply know that I was a nominal Roman Catholic (like my parents) and I really didn't think about anything spiritual. On Sunday mornings, I would be out on my bike, riding around town with my friends.

Well, one Sunday morning (like so many ones before), I was riding around town waiting for my friends to wake up and join me. I stopped at a street corner, wondering which direction I would go next when across the way, I saw my mother walking towards a small church. I called out to her and asked: "Where you going Mom?"

"I'm going to this Baptist church this morning."

"Can I come?" I asked eagerly.

"No, I'd rather not, I want to check the place out first," she replied.

With that, she walked away and it was at that moment that the Holy Spirit regenerated my dead soul and I was born again (Ephesians 2). I remember my first spiritual thought:

"Hey! this is Sunday! People who love God go to church on Sunday!"

I never thought or cared about anything like that before. So at 12 years of age, Rand was a born-again child of God!

Anyway, my Mom was saved a short time before that day, and she was looking for a church that would teach the Bible. Being saved, I had a thirst for the knowledge of God, so I started praying and reading the Word of God on my own. I convinced my Mom to let me join her in her quest to check out every church in town (Anglican, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, United, Jehovah's Witness...etc), in the hopes of finding THE CHURCH that would teach us the Bible and nothing but the Bible. Funny thing, we ended up at the Baptist church we started in.

A couple of years later, through the testimony of my mother and I, my father was saved. Which was really good, but a problem arose. My father's english wasn't great (he had trouble understanding the sermons). So we ended up leaving the english Baptist church and we joined a french Pentecostal church. The quality of the preaching wasn't too hot, but I nevertheless walked with the Lord thoughout my high school years.

(to be continued)