I was saved from my sins through Jesus’ sacrificial atonement on Calvary as I willingly admitted that I could not live a good enough life, pay enough money or do enough good deeds to get to heaven on my own.

I received Christ as my Saviour on February 2nd, 1988 at Bible Baptist Church in Tujunga, California. God had started working in my heart and drawing me to himself a few years earlier by using faithful men that were willing to go into the highways and hedges and compel folks to come in. I couldn’t get away from Christians, not even at work, as I was witnessed to there as well! I would later learn that all these men had two things in common: they all went to the same little church and they were working on me independently as the Lord lead them.

I grew up in a home where we did not attend church, although we had been to church on some major holidays, but even that was rare.

My maternal grandmother grew up in a traditional Jewish family and later married a Gentile man. They chose to raise my mom in a “Christian” home setting without a commitment to Christ or church attendance.

Later in life, my mother associated herself more with the hippie crowd than the church going crowd. I remember growing up with churches all around us, but we rarely darkened the door of any of them. Mom would often say, “I was born a Jew and I will die a Jew”. This was especially true when in 1985 when my mean, motorcycle gang member step-father received Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour! Not knowing how he was supposed to handle the Word of God, he would chase us around the house telling us “You’re all going to burn in Hell”.

We often hid when dad came home from church just to avoid him. However, I couldn’t avoid the people of the church who were faithful soul-winners. They were in front of stores, at work, and seemed to be everywhere!

I remember February 1st, 1988 just like it was yesterday. I arrived home and Mom was crying with Dad standing by her. It was about 9:00pm and I asked, “Mom what’s wrong?” She replied, “Doug, I went to that church tonight” (that is how we referred to Dad’s church) “and I’m going to go back tomorrow to get saved!”

I often reflect back to that night and wonder if God waited for her to get saved one more night so that I could go with her.

We did go with her and heard Brother Billy Allen preach. I cannot tell you what he was preaching; all I knew was that I had to get saved!

After the preaching they asked, “Does anyone want to get saved?” and the rest went really fast. I ended up in a back room and they asked me if they could show me a Bible and what it said. I replied something like God has been chasing me and I know I need to pray and ask forgiveness of my sins, can we just pray?

It was then at 8:35pm on a Tuesday night February 2nd, 1988 that I personally received Jesus Christ as my Savior.