If any one had asked me ten years ago if I was saved and sure of heaven, I would have replied that I was "waiting for it." I prayed and read my Bible and was most diligent in my attendance on taking the sacraments as "the means of grace," in the expectation that in some way not very clearly made known, salvation would come to me. I had been taught that salvation came this way and that I had to wait God's good time and hope in His mercy. I never was quite at peace, or satisfied with my condition. I knew I lacked something which others known to me seemed to possess. But how to get it, other than by "waiting" and "hoping," I knew not.

My brother, who was in business in a neighboring town, came home on the weekends. On his arrival one Saturday night he told me the unexpected news that during the week he had been "born again" and "knew it." The next day he spoke to me again and said he was "very happy now." At first I opposed him and said he had been "led astray." But he stuck to it the more and said, "There is no need to wait for salvation; there is nothing really to wait for. God is willing to save you; the work of Christ is finished and you are not required to work yourself into a saint to obtain the benefit of it, for it is sinners whom Jesus saves."

That last sentence was news to me. I had possibly been told it, or read it in the Bible before, but it never was a reality to me until that Sunday night. God loves sinners, as He says in Romans 5:8. Christ came to save sinners as the apostle tells us in 1 Timothy 1:15, and it is not the godly but the ungodly whom God justifies (Romans 4:5) and saves," said my brother, reading the verses where this is taught in the Bible.

It was all so new, so contrary to my ideas that for a time I was afraid to take it in, but as I read the Word for myself I saw it all clearly, and received Christ as my personal Saviour (John 1:12), in order to "become" a child of God. "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name" (John 1:12). What a change then I knew—no longer waiting for something to be done, but resting in a work already done—the finished work of Christ. Truly there is nothing to wait for. All is done, and all is ready, waiting for the sinner to accept.

—Diamonds of Decision