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I Get It!

I Get It!

Published Jan 03, 2018 | Precious TruthsBill Jenkin III 

Bill here—Tim Kluver and I go all the way back to our church plant in Lakewood Ranch, Florida. I have fond memories of calling on Tim and PJ in Bradenton as a newly married couple in their first apartment. They wouldn’t mind me telling you that they were believers, but weren’t going to church regularly. What a thrill to my heart to hear them call themselves products of a CBM Church Plant and it’s a wonderful delight to see their family serving with CBM. It wasn’t too long ago Tim called me—all fired after leading Eric to Christ. I asked him to put it in writing; here’s Tim’s enthusiastic story—

I received a call late last night from a lady who attends Strait View on occasion. She wanted to know if I could meet with her boyfriend whom I’ve met on a couple of occasions at the baseball fields. He’d pointedly asked her how he could know Christ and if he could meet with the preacher. As I spoke with her on the phone, I could hear him in the background, and when we set a time to meet, he said “I’m scared”—I told her it would just be two guys having a simple conversation.

I prayed for him many times during the night, asking the Lord that he would follow through with our meeting. God is so good! Eric showed up at 8:00 AM just like we planned. Physically he is a big strong man, and as we talked, I was amazed at how broken this robust man was. I asked him why he was sitting with me this morning. His simple response was “I want to know Jesus and I want Him to change my life.”

I took my time going through scripture after scripture to make sure he understood what was being taught. He was amazed at God’s love for him. After we finished reading scripture, I led in prayer and then asked him to pray and just talk to God. The precious words that he shared humbled me so much as he accepted Christ as his Savior and we rejoiced together. I explained discipleship to him and he is excited about learning more about Christ and how to live the Christian life.

We’ve already met a couple of times for discipleship and God is changing his life. In our last meeting he told me that he is really working on some things in his life: foul language, using tobacco, and other things. I asked him why he was concerned about all of these and asked if I had given him a list of do's and don’ts. He said no, there was no list given. He asked “Why do I feel wrong when I do these things now?” We had a great lesson and conversation about the Holy Spirit dwelling within him now and how the Spirit works. We discussed and defined conviction. He truly sees and knows that God is changing him from the inside out.

On a side note, I’d given Eric the example that Pastor Bill (Jenkin) gave me many years ago about the rusty old pump that produced bad water. We can clean up the outside of that old pump and paint it, and make it look great, but what kind of water will it give out? He said “bad water.” After that answer he thought, smiled big and said “I get it!” And I praise God that he gets it and rejoice at the growth of my new brother in Christ!