My Greatest Discovery
by Keith Comparetto — a Personal Testimony
“To whom God was pleased to make known what are the riches of the glory of
this mystery… which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27)
Please allow me to tell you about my life’s greatest discovery – in fact, it was the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.
I grew up in Enfield, Connecticut and, like most of us in America, took in a “smattering” of religion: a little Sunday School, a little church, a few old hymns and Christmas carols. But as I approached my teenage years, those “here a little, there a little” messages I had been taught had somehow not taken root. By the age of 15 or so, I decided I was “too intelligent” for those old stories, and proudly proclaimed myself an atheist. By then I had fallen into the self-indulgent lifestyle that so many young people follow, and by the time I finished high school found myself living with anxiety, disillusionment and depression.
When I was 17, a terrible tragedy struck our family when my 22 year old brother went out one day, ran a hose from his exhaust pipe into his car, and took his own life. For the first time I was forced to ponder the issues of life, death and eternity that I had previously ignored. At one point I nearly took my own life, but one day, through the tears of a confused, searching 17-year-old, I cried out to God (the one I had said I didn’t believe in), and begged Him, “If you are out there, please reveal yourself to me!”
Nearly two years passed before God would give me the ultimate answer to that prayer. During that time I tried to “turn over a new leaf” a number of times, but always without success. I began to realize I was in bondage to the sins which I had committed, but now I was aware enough of “God” to believe that if He were actually out there, and was at all like the Bible said He was, I was certainly not in good favor with him. By then, I had heard the Bible’s Gospel message of salvation for the first time: how the human race had sinned against its Creator and been separated from God (Isaiah 59:2); how “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), which is separation from God forever in hell (Matthew 25:46); how “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”(John 3:16); and how if we humble ourselves before Him, repent (turn from our sins to God), and believe in our heart that God has raised Jesus Christ from the dead, we can be saved from His fearful judgment (Romans 10:9).
I had never heard this message before. The church I attended as a child, perhaps like most churches today, didn’t teach these things clearly. The Bible to me had been nothing more than a book of old stories and religious dogma – at least, that’s what the modern humanistic, “scientific” culture I grew up in had told me. If Jesus had even existed, he was nothing more than a good man who lived 2,000 years ago. Yet something, or Someone, was telling me there was more to the Bible than these notions I had held. For now, all of my excuses to ignore the Gospel and live my own life as I pleased seemed irrelevant. God had now put me in the position where I had to make a choice.
Such has always been the case with God and humanity. In the Old Testament, Joshua told his wavering followers, “If it seems evil to you to serve the LORD , choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). Likewise, David the Psalmist said, “Today, if you will hear His voice: Do not harden your hearts” (Psalm 95:7-8). Elijah the prophet said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him” (I Kings 18:21). The New Testament repeats the choice, and this time it was for me: “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36).
I now had to decide that if the Bible’s message is true, I needed to receive it. I read a pamphlet entitled “God’s Simple Plan of Salvation,” and pondered it for several days. The Bible passages in it were especially powerful, for, as I now understand, the Bible is not an ordinary book: “For the word of God is living and powerful , and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12). I will never forget the day I bowed my heart before God. I had gone through the motions of praying many times before, but this time was different. This time, I was aware that I was speaking to the God who had created me and the universe!
That day, I asked forgiveness for my sin and believed on Jesus Christ. I wish I could say I understood everything that happened to me, but the Bible says that salvation is a mystery (I Timothy 3:16). I can only say that by God’s grace, I am completely changed. What I once thought of as “happiness” now seems so shallow and unfulfilling: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold , all things have become new” (II Corinthians 5:17). The Bible, which was once foolishness to me, is now precious: For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (I Cor. 1:18). I can only say that salvation – the “new birth,” which literally means “born from above” (John 3:7) — is God’s grace to me and to the countless millions of others who have experienced it.
-Keith Comparetto, pastor