Matthew Linn’s Spiritual Birthday

Last June I posted an entry about my youngest son Nicholas’ spiritual birthday.  Today is my oldest son Matthew’s spiritual birthday.  Here is a copy of the thoughts I wrote down on that providential day 12 years ago:

Well, a wonderful thing happened this morning: Matthew prayed to receive Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior.  Praise the Lord!

I have been praying every night that God would save him.  In especially the last couple days, Matthew has indicated his understanding of what it means to be a sinner and what it means to be saved.  In fact, it may very well be the case that he was actually saved last night because he told us this morning that he had prayed last night for “the two things” that I had talked to him about.  I don’t’ remember enumerating any two specific things, but he did.  Evidently, the two things involved believing in Jesus and receiving Him as Lord.  Anyway, Matthew said he had prayed “the two things” and, evidently to be sure, said that he appended the phrase: “and anything else my daddy told me!”

So, this morning, after Michele and I asked him some questions, we took him into the office where we “expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly” (Acts 18:26).  Michele drew the illustration of man being separated from God by sin and Jesus becoming our “bridge” between God and man.  After our teaching, we asked him if he wished to place his faith in Jesus Christ.  He said yes and so we led him in a prayer of confession.  This all occurred between 8:30-9:00 AM.  I then took Matthew to school (by God’s providence, Victoria Hancock was sick so her mother was not driving today.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to talk as much with Matthew.  Victoria’s mother usually arrives between 8:30-8:45 AM).

As I drove Matthew to school, I explained to him about his now being a “new” person.  I talked with him about the certainty of having a home in heaven.  He was very happy to hear about all of this.  We also talked about future sins and asking for forgiveness.  And, we talked about sharing our faith with others.  We talked about our family being in heaven.  He knew Nicholas had not yet been saved and I told Matthew that we’d have to pray for him.  To this, Matthew said, “You can’t pray for him.”  I asked, “Why not?”  Matthew replied, “Because he has to pray himself.”  This was another indication to me that Matthew fully understood the idea of personally receiving Christ for one’s self; that no one could do it for another.  I told him he was right, but that we would pray for God to show Nicholas that he is a sinner in need of salvation.

And so, I dropped him off at school about seven minutes late, but it was worth every minute of it!