Even Religious People Can Be Saved

In Acts 3, Peter preaches in the temple to a crowd of Jews. Their presence in the temple at the time of prayer indicates that these were religious people who observed the Jewish laws and rituals, but even religious people need a relationship with Jesus Christ. No one can get to heaven by obeying rules or attending services. We must repent of our sins and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior to be saved.

One of my friends Dexter Tucker recently wrote down his testimony. It is a powerful story that illustrates our ability to pretend to be believers, but not to commit ourselves to the Lord and be saved. As you read this life story about a preacher’s son turned deacon, remember that even religious people can be saved.

-----------

I grew up in a country boy with no TV or any toys. I had a big imagination and my dreams were made from that. I was very rebellious toward my daddy and I didn’t mind him very well. I got a lot of whippings because of that. All those whippings just made me more rebellious and hard headed. My mother had a softer touch and her words to me hurt me more than those whippings from daddy.

When I was 15 years old, I walked the aisle at church one Sunday morning after two of my school mates had done so. I was baptized in the local lake and now everybody looked at me with that look of “What a nice young man—a preacher’s son.” Yes, my daddy was a preacher, logger, farmer and he worked in the county government.

So I joined the Navy at the age of 18 to see the world and all that was out there. When I walked that aisle in church I had a mind change but not a heart change. So I really didn’t let God come into my life. I did my own thing in the Navy for four years. I got discharged at Norfolk, VA and I was on my way to Charleston, S.C. when I had the strangest feeling come over me as I was hitchhiking that day. Somehow I felt like I was going into a new world and I was not going to have any control of it. When I got to Charleston I went to see my old buddy who was stationed there with his wife, and I reenlisted back in the Navy for six years.

The next day, I was walking the street in Charleston at noon and just then this girl came out of a building and turned and passed right by me. I fluttered and I have never felt so shook up in all my life. After a few minutes, I calmed down. I went to my buddy’s house and we were sitting on the porch playing music and he said “There’s a girl next door that you gotta meet.”

Well, this girl came out of her door with the cousin she was staying with and I almost lost my breath. It was the same girl I had seen at noon on the street downtown. So I said to her about what and when I saw her and she said it could have been because she was going to lunch at that time. She didn’t know me from Adam. So, I asked her to go to the movies with me and she did.

After three dates and three months later, I asked her to marry me and she said yes. We went to my hometown to introduce her to my parents and my mother said to the “Honey I’ve been praying for him every day since he left home. Now you can pray for him.”

My wife got saved the first year of our marriage and then came our first child, a boy. I was deployed during his birth. She read the Bible to him every night and prayed for him and me every night.

Well, this rocked on for years. I would come home and go to church and Sunday School with them and played the part of a Christian. Yes, I was a good actor.
I had been in the Navy for 10 years and was on shore duty in Panama City, FL. My wife was pregnant with our 2nd child. She had a good pregnancy for almost 9 months and then we suddenly lost our beautiful baby girl. I almost lost my wife too. I cried and my 3 year old son cried too.

I was still playing the good old boy Christian routine and after a few years, 5 to be exact, my wife was pregnant again and this time God gave us another son.
Well, we ended up my last three years of the Navy in Orlando. I played the part at being a Christian so good that I was ordained as a deacon.

After I retired and moved my family to Douglasville, I was sitting in the choir loft listening to the preacher, who was Bro. Jack Evans, and he said something when I hear God call out to me. My response was yes, Lord, come into my heart, I surrender my life to you and He did and I came out of that choir loft shouting “hallelujah Bro. Jack, I just go saved!!”

Now to summarize my life story to you, it goes like this:

My wife knew all the time that I wasn’t saved. I knew deep down I wasn’t saved because of my actions away from home.

When I got saved and I gave myself to God, He changed my desire and my wants and I love Him and worship Him every minute of every day.

I look back and see how I worked for the devil all those years and I also see how God gave me my precious wife through my mother’s prayer, and how god saved me through my wife’s prayers. I’m still working on my Masters Degree and I’ll graduate when I get to heaven. Praise God for the Holy Spirit and for letting Jesus, His son, die for my sins.

-----------

Maybe you are like Dexter once was—playing the part of a Christian. If you are like he once was, you can also become like he now is—a child of God. If you have any doubts about your salvation, please contact me and let me share with you how you can know for certain that you are saved and that heaven will some day be your home.