My name is Derek, and I grew up in a Hutterite community. I was raised in a place where the Bible was read and where I went to church every day.
I grew up knowing about God and the stories of the Bible. I was taught to dress a certain way and to live a good moral life. I was taught to live my life trying to please God as much as possible and that by doing good deeds I may “earn” eternal life. Of course this is not true according to the Bible. I did not have peace with God. I was not taught that I could know for sure where I will be after I die.
But for much of my childhood, I wasn’t too concerned about my soul and where I was headed after I die. I was 17 years old when I left the colony, and like many others who leave, I lived the party life. It was a life that left me empty and without purpose. After a few months of this, I started searching for the truth. I remember at times thinking of my soul and being troubled about my eternal destiny.
I was troubled about where I would be when I die and fearful of meeting God as a judge. I knew I had sinned and I was afraid of Hell.
I moved back closer to home, to the city of Winnipeg, where my brother Mark lived. He was a born again Christian. He welcomed my twin brother and me to stay with him. He invited us to come to church to hear the gospel spoken at a series of evangelistic services. We declined at first, but after a while we decided to go and see what it was all about. There, I heard the clear gospel message preached from the Bible.
I learned the truth from the Bible about my sin, God’s righteousness, eternal punishment, and God’s love and forgiveness through His Son, Jesus Christ.
I was shown God’s free offer of salvation to me through the punishment for my sins that Jesus bore on the cross. I heard that if anyone repents of their sins and trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ, they will be saved from their sins and have eternal life.
After hearing the gospel that evening, I was concerned but not urgent about my soul’s salvation. My twin brother leaned over to me after the meeting and told me that we needed to be saved. It was urgent to him! And it concerned him greatly. He read, “For 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). That evening after thinking about the verse, he turned to the Lord Jesus Christ and trusted Him as his personal Saviour. About a week passed, I grew more and more concerned about my soul and about where I was headed after I died. Peace with God became something that I longed for.
I wanted to be saved and to have my sins forgiven.
One evening, I was so troubled that I don’t think I slept all night. I remember tossing and turning, burdened with my sin and with the prospect of sure judgment to follow.
I realized that I was going to go to Hell because of my sins and that God would be just in sending me there.
I understood that I could not go to Heaven with my sins. They needed to be removed, but how?I understood that I could not go to Heaven with my sins. They needed to be removed, but how? How could I be right with God and know it? The next morning, I arrived at the warehouse where I work and went straight to the bathroom just so that I could get away from everyone else. I needed to be saved more than anything in the world. I fell on my face on the bathroom floor and cried out for God to save me.
It was there on the bathroom floor that I realized for the first time that Jesus died for me. That when Jesus cried, “It is finished!”(John 19:30) and died, it was for me. Because He didn’t have any sins of His own, He fully paid for my sins and finished the work completely. He did it all! For me! There was nothing I could do or needed to do but accept it as a free gift.
I trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as my own personal Saviour that morning. It was by far the best day of my life. It was the day I was born again and when I met my Saviour, “who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Derek Hofer
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