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Personal Testimony by Dana Shamburger Student @ FGS
Strong-willed, stubborn, bull-headed, dogmatic, opinionated and domineering. These are all traits with which I have been labeled. Some may say these are negative and unwanted traits. But I would like to encourage parents with strong-willed children that sometimes these can be positive character traits.
Dr. Mike Halsey the pastor of County Line Church and the president of Free Grace Seminary asked me if I would give my testimony as to why I believe so strongly in the free grace message of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone.
I became a Christian at age 8 at a vacation Bible school in Greenville , South Carolina , at Augusta Street Presbyterian Church. This church had separated from the Westminster Confession of Faith and PCA and taught the free grace message. I consider it a blessing to know that was my spiritual birthday. I did the catechism, was sprinkled, and joined the church when I was in the 5th grade.
We moved to Birmingham , Alabama , when I was in the 7th grade and joined Shades Mountain Bible Church where I sat under the teaching of Howard (Mickey) Park. Pastor Park graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary in the 60’s having studied under Charles Ryrie and other biblical scholars. His teaching gave me a strong foundation in doctrine and had much to do with my being able to resist and refute the incorrect teachings to which I was to be exposed, over the next several years. I surrendered publicly to the Lord at age 15 for Him to use me in whatever way He wanted.
This sounds very simple but I went through some times of uncertainty and doubt about my beliefs and salvation. I wondered why I was having such doubts.
Perhaps the seeds of doubt were planted when I attended a youth group with a friend and they told me I had gotten saved the wrong way, since I had not walked down the aisle at church and been baptized.
Maybe it was because when I was in the 10th grade, attending a Christian school, my teacher told us that if we were true Christians and in fellowship with the Lord, we would pass geometry. I made an F the first 6 weeks. When I was brought in for my required conference with the teacher I was not asked “What do you not understand about the subject?” The teacher asked me if I was a Christian and if so why I was not in fellowship with the Lord.
It could have been when I was kicked off the cheerleading squad for dancing, kissed the guys I dated before marriage or at one time watched a soap opera on TV.
After my marriage to David in 1979, being in the military, we moved every 2 ½ to 3 years. We had the opportunity to attend a variety of churches, representing the various denominations all over the United States as we went to different duty stations when David was on active duty with the Air Force, I have heard pastors and evangelists give a list of things to do in order to be saved that are so complicated that it’s a wonder any one under their ministries comes to know Christ.
I heard it all: ”To be saved you have to… come forward to receive Christ, place your sins at the foot of the cross, take up the cross of Christ, lay aside your sins, walk the aisle and be baptized, confess your sins, then wait. When you receive your prayer language you’ll receive the Holy Spirit, and at last you will be saved
Along the way, they told me to make Jesus Lord of my life, then I could be saved. After years of confusion and doubt I wanted to scream, “No! No! No! I know I’m a Christian because I believed in Jesus and received His free gift of eternal life when I was 8.”
My stubbornness kicked in. I wanted to be able to defend my beliefs and prove to all of those people that I was right to believe in salvation by grace through faith alone in Christ alone and I did not have to do anything to earn it. I also wanted to be sure I was teaching my daughters correctly, as well as the students with whom I was entrusted in the Christian schools where I worked. Thanks to Precept Ministries and Kay Arthur’s Inductive Bible Study series, (studying the Bible using cross references and original languages) I started learning all I could about how to study the Bible spending much time focusing on the doctrine of salvation.
My study showed me in numerous references in the gospel of John and in the epistles that all one has to do in order to gain salvation is believe in Jesus and His finished work on the cross. Moreover, I learned that those who told me I had to walk an aisle, leave my sins at the foot of the cross, get baptized and stop sinning were wrong. Simply put, many of these church leaders were trying to take daily sanctification and spiritual growth items of obedience and lump them together as prerequisites to salvation. Yes, as a believer I do need to “trust in the Lord, with all my heart”, “refrain from worldly behavior” and “be filled with the Holy Spirit; not as a means of salvation but as an exercise of a believer who wants to conform himself to become more like Christ
I came to believe strongly in free grace, not only because I’m stubborn and wanted to prove wrong those who made me feel guilty and doubt my salvation but also because it is what the Word of God says. I encourage every one of you not to be misled in thinking salvation comes by any other means that by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone because of His finished work on the cross.
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