ApX Lead Singer/Lyricist Shares His Testimony 36 Years Later
Sat., Feb. 3. 2024 3:02pm EST
J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here.
After a loved one passes, it has become increasingly popular for family and friends to have something called "a celebration of life" in place of or in addition to a funeral. This week, I'd like you to join me in a celebration of new life.
On January 31, 1988, I excused myself from a Super Bowl party at an apartment in Indiana PA and walked into an empty church next door. I didn't know why; it's not like I was going through some great personal crisis. Thankfully, the church doors were unlocked. The next thing I knew, I was talking to a God I wasn't even sure was there. I'd spent the previous year acting like He didn't exist, embracing as much agnosticism as my battered conscience would allow.
Though I'd been a moral and religious kid (at least by the standards of my peers, not my own standards) up through my late teens, I'd gradually embraced hedonism in college, with rare exceptions (like Sunday mornings and the occasional troubling situation that might necessitate prayer) and I liked it for the most part. I'd been chained up for a long time, and it was fun running wild.
Then, a year after college, there was a brief period when I felt led to start reading the Bible. I actually liked that, too, but I began feeling convicted. So I tried to make myself good enough for God in my own strength and piety, but that failed miserably, and I wound up running even farther from Him. I took the emergency brake off of my life, doing whatever I wanted without fear of moral consequences, and seeking answers to life's questions in science, humanism, and pleasure.
Now after a year's worth of "anything goes," for some inexplicable reason I found myself alone in a church, kneeling, pouring my heart out to God, asking Him to come in and take over my life. I didn't know what I was doing. In retrospect, I think I'd probably made similar commitments to Him at earlier points in my life, but this was different somehow. Frankly, after I got up, I didn't feel that different, nor did I realize what a cataclysmic effect it would have on my life.
But, in the weeks that followed, it soon became apparent that a dramatic change had happened in me. I started reading the Bible again, and it was like a whole new book -- so much easier to understand. Even more amazingly, I found myself believing it. I read the whole thing cover to cover. And then again. And I never stopped. I'd always thought Jesus was cool; I just didn't know if He was real or if He'd accept me. He is and He did. And He's cooler than I ever imagined.
I started seeing prayers answered specifically (and I still do) in ways I'd never dreamed could happen in modern times. And God brought new friends into my life, including many my own age, who'd had or were having the same experience. My old friends wondered if this was just the latest "thing" I was into, and I don't blame 'em. But it was no fad. It was real, there was no turning back, and I've never regretted it. And some of my old friends eventually joined me.
Over the years, I've had the chance to share portions of my testimony in a number of our parodies. I've selected seven that sort of sum up that section of my life and put them in loose chronological order:
1. "Choirboy"
2. "More Than a Healing"
3. "The Real Need"
4. "Look Yourself"
5. "He Hears Me"
6. "I Can Read About You"
7. "Sorry All the Time"
And that was just the start. As they say, this is the song that never ends. Yes, it goes on and on, my friends. Jesus put it this way in John 5:24:
"Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life."
Amen. Hallelujah!
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