It's Not Who You Are - It's Who You Know!

My name is Stephen Brooking, I am 31 years old and I am a sinner.

Sounds like a weird version of an alcoholics anonymous meeting doesn’t it. Actually this is a lot more serious than that because the destination of our souls is at stake. If we do not accept that we are sinners in need of repentance then we are lost and on our way to an eternity in hell. The Word of God tells us that we have all sinned and if we say that we have not then we call God a liar.

Romans 3:23
23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

1 John 1:8-10
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

Why am I telling you that I am a sinner? The answer to that is because God commands it. In James 5:16 we are told to confess our sins one to another. So having stated this let me reiterate; My name is Stephen Brooking, I am 31 years old and I have sinned my whole life.

Let me tell you a little about myself so that you might be able to understand a little easier where I am coming from.

Before I start I must point out that the purpose of this is not to pass blame. I am not trying to blame anybody else for the things that happened in my life. I am to blame for all of my own sins. It is true that people can influence you as you grow (especially parents) but everybody must realize that the final decision to act is yours and yours alone, a fact that all too many people will come to realize when they die and stand before the judgment throne of God. Too many people will try to blame others, but God will hold every person accountable for their own sins.

The purpose of this is to show the glory of God in what He has done in my life. He brought me out of a life of sin into a life where I work for Him.

I was born on the North island of New Zealand and lived just outside a town called Upper Hutt. I spent my days playing in the woods and building tree houses. I rode my bike and swam in the local creek in summer. On Saturdays I would wake up, have breakfast, then go out and play and I would not be back until dinnertime. I went to church every Sunday with my mother and siblings (my father was not yet saved). I enjoyed school (my school had a grand total of about 60 students). In fact I enjoyed my childhood in all but one way, my stepfather and I did not get along. In fact I spent most of my time avoiding him. I think that his dislike for me stemmed from the fact that I was not his biological son. What proved this to me was the fact that he gave my younger half brother (his biological son) his namesake, a privilege normally reserved for the eldest child. My dislike for him was nothing more than an intense hatred for authority of any kind. Although I have since forgiven him we never really came to reconciliation even after he got saved.

We moved to Australia in about 1985 and spent the first couple of years moving around until we found a permanent place to live. It was hard at first to make friends until I learned that to fit in all I had to do was pretend to be someone I was not. Everyone wanted to be friends with the new kid until they found out that I was different. My mother had raised me in the fear and admonition of the Lord and it showed in the way I dealt with other people. So I was not accepted at these schools until I became someone I was not. In doing this I compromised God and myself. I eventually had this down to such an art form that I could change my personality in a second and most of the time even I did not know who I was. I accomplished this so well that I was accepted into all of the different groups at the schools I attended. This was what the devil wanted, and I followed him whole-heartedly. When I was with the intellectuals I was smart, when I hung out with the outcasts I was a rebel and I was fashionable enough for the popular group. As you can imagine, trying do be another person led me into a variety of vices. I was a drunk, I took drugs, I chased girls, I got involved in role-playing games (dungeons and dragons, etc), and I was a thief, to name a few. As my rebellion continued I became a lot more involved in all of these sins. This is another trick of the devil; he starts you out slow and builds up speed.

I once heard a proverb that explains this theory. It goes like this: if you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water he will jump out and get away, but if you put him into cold water and slowly turn up the heat, before he knows what is happening he has boiled to death. This is how the devil tempts you. He likes to start you off slow and turn up the heat gradually. Before you know it you are neck deep in sin and on your way to hell. I was that frog, but God had a way out. My life got steadily worse, my drinking increased, I was taking drugs on a regular basis, I became so involved in role-playing games that I thought about them constantly, my womanizing became so prolific that I was jumping from girlfriend to girlfriend until that was not enough and I became involved in pornography. I became lazy and insolent and was only looking out for myself. Because of this I had trouble holding a job, which gave me more free time to get deeper into sin. I was the devil’s child hook, line and sinker and during all of this I was going to church and pretending to be someone else. Even though I had been to church my whole life I had never had a personal experience with God and so I had no idea who He really was. Don’t get me wrong; I did believe that God existed. I just did not care enough to obey Him. My life was one big lie, and nobody caught on until I met a true man of God.

Let me explain. The people at the church I attended did not like me, in fact they spent their time gossiping about me and finding ways to backstab me. I think the reason for this was because I would not worship their pastor the way that they did. Even neck deep in sin as I was, I knew that this man did not hear from God. But whatever the reason, they did not like me and I did not like them, in fact I lived to irritate these self-righteous, so-called people of God. I am not trying to be vindictive or spiteful I am just trying to tell you how it was.

Why did I continue to go there you ask? It was because he did not hear from God. Nobody likes his or her sins to be known and if this man had been a true servant of God then he would have known what I was into and tried to bring me out of it. Why even go to church then? I went because I was daring God to show me that He loved me enough to meet me where I was, and He did!

When a true man of God finally came to this church and God spoke to me through him to tell me what God had called me to do, the people of this church told him that he did not hear from God because I was a hopeless case, that God could never use someone like me and that he and his sons should stay away from me because I was evil. Thank God that they did not listen. God used a donkey to talk to Balaam so He could find a use even for someone like me.

Let me explain how this happened.

One day with nothing to do I went to church to catch up with some old friends. On this particular day a preacher from America was talking and for the first time I sat down to listen. If you asked me today what he spoke about I could not tell you, all I know is that he was a true man of God. He preached with such an anointing of the Holy Spirit that even I could see it. Then God did something miraculous, He accepted my unconscious dare to meet me where I was. This preacher, whom I had never met before, proceeded to tell me all that I had done in my life and all that had been said about me by the members of this church and what God had planned for my life. Everything that he said that day about me could only have come from God because it was 100% true. If I had been listening to God my life would have changed right there. I was not listening and my life, far from staying the same got worse.

When this preacher and his family moved to Australia some time later I was worse off than before. I was living with my stepfather and his new wife (my mother had gone to be with the Lord) because I had nowhere else to go. God had taken my house, my car, my job and my girlfriend away. And then to put the icing on the cake (to coin a phrase) my stepfather was kicking me out to make room for a relative of his new wife. That day the Lord worked another miracle in my life and I ran into the preacher and his family at the local shopping center. They told me that they had been praying for me and asked how I was doing and swallowing my pride I told them. And this is where the miracle came into play because they offered to let me move into their already cramped house with them. It was here that the Lord built on the teachings that my mother had given me so many years before. I would like to say that it was all smooth sailing from then on but it wasn’t.

Because I was stubborn and hard headed it took longer than it should have for me to learn the simplest things about God. But the Lord in His mercy has been patient with me and I am learning more about Him every day. I am learning that the plan God had for my life is coming to pass just as God had said it would. The plan that I ruined (and thought I had destroyed) by my sin and disobedience is being rebuilt by God, in His mercy and grace. As I learn to obey Him in all things He is faithful to continue the work that He began in my life so many years ago. I have been blessed with a new family; Godly parents and three times as many brothers and sisters as I had, who also hear from God. He has given me a business and allowed me to be a part of His outreach ministry and best of all He has allowed me to work for Him. I give all the glory to God because He alone deserves it and because He had every right to leave me hell bound in my sin.

My initial statement is still true, but there is an amendment. My name is Stephen Brooking, I am 31 years old and I am a sinner but I am saved by the grace of God!

Be encouraged saints because our God is a miracle working God, and give Him the glory daily because we are saved by His mercy alone not because of anything we have done. If you are reading this and you are not saved or not sure then you need to get on your knees now and ask Jesus to come into your life and take control of it, confess that you are a sinner and that only God can save you. If you call on Him with a sincere heart then He will answer. Live for Him, read His word and obey Him and you will truly be called a Son of God. Then you will never hear those horrible words at the judgment, “away from Me, I never knew you.” I know that He can save you because as sinful as I was He saved me.

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