Suddenly my Mom started calling me again and again, wanting to confess
her sins, and to ask for forgiveness. This made me very uncomfortable!
What happened to my mom? She was different. I told her, “Mom,
I don’t know what you are up to, but I just want to let you know
that I am not sorry for a single thing I ever did.” I suspected
that something was up. You can’t just change like that, and be
a totally different person, can you? My wife and I were sure that this
supposed “change” wouldn’t last. Later, I asked my
Mom, “Why are you and Dad so different now?” Apparently
she told me the good news about Jesus and how I could have a new life,
but I wasn’t listening.
Pacer's playoff games, and events leading
up to the Billy Graham Crusade
In the spring of ‘99, my Dad invited me to all
the Pacer’s home playoff games. He had to sit next to the most
obnoxious Pacer’s fan ever! I took this gigantic bullhorn with
me and screamed obscenities at the players during the entire game.
I knew that he was “religious” and sometimes I wondered
how he could sit next to me, with the way I was acting. It was then
that I knew he loved me, and he made Jesus more attractive to me. One
time I asked my Mom, “OK, what is the bare-bones minimum that
I have to do to get into heaven?” She said, “Believe in
Jesus.” I told her, “Fine, I believe in Jesus. Now why
are you guys always talking about Him?” She told me, “Tom,
when you believe in Jesus, you love Him. And you can’t help but
talk about someone you love.” That really struck a cord in me
because I didn’t talk about Jesus, because I really didn’t
love Him, which meant that I must not have believed in Him.
One day, I saw a bus drive past me with a billboard on it that read, “The
beginning is near.” And it had a picture on it of an older man. Well,
I thought, “The End was near”, with Y2K coming up. And who was
this man? I had a hard time sleeping that night. I laid there thinking about “The
beginning is near” and what that meant. Somehow I felt like The Beginning
was near for me, but the beginning of what?
Later, my Mom called and invited us to the Billy Graham Crusade. I had never
heard of Billy Graham before. She said he was an evangelist. I had heard of “televangelists” and
told her I didn’t want to go. It sounded ‘religious’. She
told me he was “the real thing”. That also impacted me because
IF he was the real thing then there is a fake religion, a religion that doesn’t
do anything for your soul. I had thought all religion was about the same. But
to think that there is a real thing got me thinking. Nevertheless, I turned
her down and said I wouldn’t go. But God wanted me to go, so He worked
out a combination of miraculous events that included my wife’s mom, and
so we decided to go to the Crusade with my parents.
The 1999 Indianapolis Billy
Graham Crusade
It was Friday June 4, 1999. The Crusade started at
7 PM, and by 8:40 PM, Billy Graham still hadn’t come up to speak.
I was incredibly irritated. I leaned over to my wife and said, “This
is annoying. I came here to listen to Billy Graham and all these people
keep getting up, talking about their religion, singing and waving their
hands in the air.”
(Little did I know that “The beginning was near.”)
Then Billy Graham got up to speak. It was as if the Holy Spirit grabbed me
by the throat and told me to listen. I was sitting on the edge of my seat.
He told me that I had a hole in my heart that was created by God and it could
only be filled by Jesus! With 50,000 people in the audience I felt like he
was talking directly to me! He said, “The reason why you have so many
problems in your life is because you haven’t made Jesus Lord over your
life.” Then I could see my life, and what I had made of it using all
of my God-given talents for myself. My life was all about Me, and I thought
highly of myself. But I didn’t think much of most people. I yelled at
them while I was driving. I talked bad about them when they weren’t around.
And I put everyone into 1 of 4 categories. They were either rude, stupid, weird,
or ugly. And most of time I thought they fit into more than one category! That
was my life. There were other things that I wanted to change about myself,
but I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried, there were sins I couldn’t
stop committing because I tried to do it myself, apart from Jesus. I was in
a desperate situation—I saw that I deserved to go to hell. I turned to
Jesus and asked Him to save me.
Then Billy Graham asked us to stand up, come down and invite Jesus into our
heart.
When I stood up, God filled my heart with love for everyone. I suddenly felt
an intense love for my parents and I can praise Jesus by telling you that today
my wife and I and my parents enjoy a wonderful relationship. Jesus has changed
me! I am a new creation! The old Tom Eads is gone. “I have been crucified
with Christ, therefore I no longer live, Jesus Christ now lives in me.” Jesus
has turned the water into wine.
Changed lives
Today I am happy to say that I am a new man. Jesus has not only changed me
and given me a love for others [instead of "categorizing" them],
but He has also changed my relationships. I have a renewed relationship with
my parents. I am a better father, husband, and worker. I am certainly not
perfect, and continue to sin, but it is powerful what Jesus can do to your
heart and life. Thank you Jesus for changing me, and straightening out a
life that I couldn't straighten on my own. Thank you Jesus for dying for
me.
Call for a commitment
If Jesus can give up His life for us, then we should
be able to give our life to Him, shouldn’t we? Maybe you’re
here today thinking, “I’m nothing like that guy. I go to
church regularly, I get along with everybody, everything’s fine!
But then again, something’s missing. Life hasn’t turned
out to be as fulfilling as I hoped it would be…. But I’m
a good person. I believe in Jesus.” But you don’t really
KNOW Him, do you? You can’t honestly say that in your heart,
you love Him… But Jesus loves you!
You cannot get to heaven by being “a better person” or by being “more
religious.” God wants to have a personal, one-on-one relationship with
you! You cannot enjoy this relationship as long as you think you’re “OK” and
don’t want to give your whole life to Jesus. You’ll always be on
the outside looking in, wondering what it is that all these people find so
fascinating about Jesus, and why they keep talking about Him. But the instant
that you submit your whole life to Jesus, you will begin to see why it is said, “With
Jesus, there is meaning and purpose in my life. With Jesus there will be meaning
and purpose in my death.” Please, Give your life to Jesus today. The
Beginning is here! |
