by Chalan Hetherington

As a child I was taken regularly to a catholic church with some family members. I began to notice the hypocrisy, idolatry and superstition of the catholic church. Thankfully one day we left the country and we never went back to another catholic church again.

Sometime later as a teenager, I was invited to a charismatic church with friends, which was certainly very different but no better. The idea of church by then really did not appeal to me whatsoever.

Then later on in life at the age of twenty six, I received a telephone call from my mother who lived on her own in England. She shared with me the tragic news that she had little time to live. I quickly came over to England to see her and I also started to go to church with her.

It was a completely different church to what I had ever experienced before, the people were so different, God and the Bible seemed so important to everyone, not just at church but in every part of their lives. It was this church.

Facing the sad reality of my mother’s imminent death, I began thinking of my life too, and what these people believed. Through this situation God caused me to seek Him by His grace. 

The Bible started to make more and more sense to me, and finally I remember reading the Words prophesied in Isaiah 53 found in Old Testament  concerning the future coming of the Lord Jesus Christ written some 670 years before His birth. Which reads....

"All we like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" Isaiah 53:6

Right then the main message of the Bible was revealed to me. The "Him" in Isaiah 53:6 spoke of Christ who was to be sent into the world, and would die in the place of all sinners who would put their trust in Him.  

I can not explain it. Other than, at that moment, I began to sense a deep conviction of my sin, and sorrow for all my past and present wrong doings.

I began to pray to God and asked Him to have mercy on me, and to forgive me, and to save me from His judgment spoken of which is to come. I read in the Bible that God had already turned His wrath and anger against me toward His Son.

The reality of this was upon my heart and caused real and radical changes in my life. I realise each day that passes that I am unworthy of His love to me, but I believe that Christ has died for me.

In John 3:18 the the lord Jesus Christ said

“He who believes in Me is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

The Lord has provided me with a good wife, Anita who has been a tremendous blessing to me, she is supportive, loving and faithful. She shares completely my understanding of the Word of God and its out workings in the Christian life and the church. 

We have four children, Emma, Sarah, Megan and Paul.

God has saved me according to His mercy and His grace, and it is because of this fact, that I long to know Him more through His Word, pray to Him, personally and with my family and other Christians and encourage and nurture God's people in the Word of God. 

One of the very many hymns, that has been particularly meaningful to me, since the day the Lord saved me is:-    When I survey the wondrous cross  

Listen to a message by a well known preacher:    "What is a  Biblical Christian"  

Chalan Hetherington