I was a stranger to the God that I was talking about. Eventually this led to a crisis and I went to an older Christian friend who just set me down and he spent I spent the weekend with him and he just sat me down and he just talked to me about Christ and the work of Christ. And at the time he didn't really understand that I wasn't a Christian at all. I was a hypocrite. But when he talked about Christ, God used that.

I could see for the first time that the words I was using about Jesus Christ were real. I could see that the statements that I was saying about the need of man and his sinfulness was real. And for the first time, those words came crashing against my life in a way that they had never done before. So I could see the realities of Christ on the cross bearing my particular sin. That the hammer of God's justice was coming down and I feared that it would come on me and I felt for the first time in my life it really ought to come on me.

It was right. It was just for me to be punished if only God's reputation could be put or made right. But instead Christ intervenes by the plan of the Father. He takes the blow for me and there was nothing I could do. No more bargaining, no more saying to Christ, well if you'll do this for me, if you'll forgive me for this, if you'll overlook this, then I'll do better here or there.

I was so humbled by the sight of Christ on the cross as this friend talked to me, that I realized that it would be a great offense to God on top of all my sin to try to tell him that I could help Christ pay for this. So I was only left with one option either I could walk away in unbelief or if I believed it I could just give him myself not as a payment but as thank you. So for me in conversion wasn't being told I could go to heaven, it wasn't being told I wouldn't be in trouble for the way I lived, it wasn't being given a list of things I should do and all the benefits I would receive, it was being conquered, just utterly conquered by the supreme attraction of Jesus Christ.