“God’s Grace – My Heart” by Mark McGee
God saved me on a Monday. My heart understood what had happened on a Sunday.
It was almost 50 years ago when I completed an investigation into the truth claims of Christian theism. I started the investigation because a guest on my radio talk show presented some claims about the Bible’s credibility based on scientific data. As a strong atheist I found those claims an interesting challenge. It shouldn’t take long to debunk Christianity using scientific data.
However, I found that the data actually supported truth claims about the existence of God. I also found that historical information supported truth claims concerning the credibility of the Bible and the reality of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Monday
The sun was beginning to appear lower in the sky as I drove up to the office of two Christians who were available to answer questions that were part of my investigation. One of the men was locking the door to the building when I walked up to him. He said he was heading home to eat supper and asked how he could help me. I asked him a couple of questions, then he asked me a question – a question that would put me on the path of an amazing journey.
“Do you know of any reason why you shouldn’t place your faith in Jesus Christ as Savior?”
I thought for a moment and told him no. I couldn’t think of any reason. All my questions had been answered. He unlocked his office door and we went inside. We sat down in chairs across from each other. He led me in a simple prayer. I told God I believed in Him. I told God I was a sinner and needed His forgiveness. I told God I believed He had sent His Son Jesus Christ to live a perfect life on earth and die on the cross for my sins. I believed that God had raised Jesus from the dead. I asked God to forgive me. I asked Jesus to come into my heart and give me eternal life. That was my spiritual beginning.
I went home with a sense of completion. I had spent months investigating whether God existed, the Bible was credible and Jesus Christ was real. I had finished the investigation and determined that there is a God and He is the God of the Bible. I had made that determination based on facts and investigative analysis.
I called my parents and let them know what I had done. They had been praying for me, even when I laughed at them for doing so. I wanted to let them know that I now believed in God and in His Son Jesus Christ. I was a Christian. They invited me church on Sunday.
Sunday
I felt a little odd being in my parents’ church. Many of their friends knew me as an atheist on the radio who mocked Christians for their beliefs. They welcomed me to church and many shared how glad they were that I now believed in God. I told them it was only reasonable and logical to believe in God based on the evidence. My mind was convinced.
One of the first hymns the church sang that morning was Amazing Grace. I was familiar with the song having grown up in church. I also knew it from an album that Judy Collins had recorded the year before. Radio stations were playing the song so I was familiar with the words and melody.
What I wasn’t familiar with was what happened as I began to sing the song in my parents’ church. I began to tear up, then cry. Crying turned into weeping. I did my best to control myself in the church, but I felt as if something profound had happened to me. Something beyond myself was wringing my heart and bringing tears to my eyes.
What in the world was happening to me? Was I sad? No. It wasn’t sadness. Was I overjoyed? Yes. I was overjoyed, but it was something much deeper than that.
I believe that was the moment I grasped something of the magnitude of what God had done for me in sending His Son to die for me and forgiving me of my many, many sins. The truth of God’s existence that had been at the center of my intellectual investigation had permeated my heart – the seat of my emotions and will – and the tears flowed.
The first verse of Amazing Grace was definitely about me. It was my life story. I had mocked Christians for years. I had laughed at them and called them stupid and ignorant because they believed in God and the Bible. I had been lost, but now was found. I had been blind, but now could see. God’s amazing Grace was so sweet to my ears and my heart.
“Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch; like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.”
The second verse reminded me of that moment when I had first believed. The grace of God was so precious from the moment I confessed with my mouth the Lord Jesus and believed in my heart that God had raised Him from the dead. I was saved!
“Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved; How precious did that grace appear The hour I first believed!”
The third verse spoke clearly to how good God was to me. He promised to deliver on His promises. God promised me eternal life and I took Him at His Word. I went from hopeless to hopeful because of His goodness. He would guide and protect me through this new life I was living.
“The Lord hath promised good to me, His word my hope secures; He will my shield and portion be As long as life endures.”
The fourth verse was an amazing promise of everlasting peace. It has no end. I would soon experience the presence of God face to face and live in His presence forever.
“When we’ve been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun, We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise Than when we first begun.”
Music and Tears
I loved listening to Amazing Grace on the radio and at church. I teared up every time I heard the song. I remember driving to work with the windows down singing along with Judy Collins at the top of my lungs – tears streaming down my face.
I also fell in love with other hymns that would lead me to tears. Some of them were hymns I remembered from my childhood. They meant nothing to me then because I was lost in trespasses and sins, as the Apostle Paul would say. However, those great old hymns of the faith came to have special meaning to me when I sang them because I had experienced the forgiveness and redemption of God.
Music still affects me the same way today. I tear up and sometimes weep when singing in church or listening to music on radio or online. I think it’s okay to cry when you have something as amazing as God’s Grace in your heart. They are tears of great joy because of His great love for us.
“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:4-7
Your Heart
That’s my experience. What about yours? We are all unique, unrepeatable miracles of God. God knew me inside and out. He knew how to reach my mind with all the answers I needed to emerge from the darkness of atheism to the bright light of Jesus Christ. He knew how to reach into my heart and experience and explore the depth of His great love for me. God knows you as well. How is He working in your heart and mind?
In answer to a scribe’s question about which of God’s commandment is first, Jesus responded.
“The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.” Mark 12:29-30
God wants us to love Him with every part of who we are. His reward is great and eternal.
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
~ Written by Mark McGee ~
Mark McGee is a career journalist and former atheist. He worked on the news staff of several radio and television stations (including Huntsville’s WAAY-TV from 1984-1996) and two large metropolitan newspapers. Mark was a reporter, correspondent, anchor, managing editor, executive producer, and news director during a four-decade career in news. Since retiring in 2009, Mark has worked as a communications director and consultant.
Mark has written three published books and more than 250 Ebooks. He also writes regularly for several Christian blogs. Mark serves with Ratio Christi Campus Apologetics Alliance and works with students at the University of Alabama Huntsville.
Mark has been active in martial arts and self-defense training for almost 60 years and has been teaching from a Christian perspective for almost 50. He offers free self-defense clinics to businesses, schools and churches in the Huntsville area and is an instructor with Christian Soldiers Karate at Whitesburg Baptist Church.
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