GRACE

If you’re reading this, congratulations! You have been given the best gift: the gift of life. Life is beautiful; we get to enjoy love, beauty, excitement, hope and comfort. However, all who live also experience the worst parts of life: regret, self-loathing, loneliness, abandonment, death, pain, grief, injustice, fear, betrayal, and loss.

You will notice, in your heart at times like this, that you feel a natural instinct- to serve, to devote, to help, or to put faith in something bigger than yourself. Our inclination to do this comes from a deep longing given to us from a perfect and loving Creator. You and I feel His call, especially when pain has cleared away all other distractions. You either learn to hide from it, distract yourself into ignoring it, or you can decide to accept it.

For myself, I accepted this call at the age of 12. You may ask yourself, “What can a 12-year-old know of life, choices, pain and distress?” Admittedly, not a lot. However, by that age I had already lived more life than most full-grown adults. I had, by that time, had a gun put to my head and forced to watch the pornography, and if any of us hormone- raging kids got excited, we would be shot. I had been beaten up 2-3 times a week in a school bathroom for an entire year. I had been insulted and physically harmed and told if I tattled, I would be harmed or killed. I had boys, girls, and full-grown women offer adult activities to me. I had been offered alcohol and drugs, often seeing them be used right in front of me. A friend, with no adult in sight, began to drown in front of me, I chose to go after this boy even though doing so very literally almost got us both killed because he was bigger and heavier than poor 10-year-old me. I’ve been lost and hopeless, cried with my hands to the sky.

With the wisdom that comes with age and experience, I learned that, honestly, the ones in life who hurt us are usually just confused people doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, which we have all been at times.

In my own brokenness, I took advantage of people, stole from and harmed others without cause, lied and- worst of all- kept the darkest parts of life hidden from the adults who cared infinitely for me.

I tell you about that because I want to draw you to this statement: life happens all around us every day, and we should never assume for a minute that our fellow travelers have experienced any more or less pain than we have- it’s simply part of being alive in a sinful world where free will exists.

Luckily, I was raised in a God-fearing household. In all my distress and unfortunate situations, as well as the good ones, I began to put my trust in God. Over time I learned never to feel hopeless in my pain, and always to feel loved. I had that internal framework because I had a wonderful family who told me life here was a training ground for what comes next, that strength is born of pain, and that Jesus would never abandon me if I relied on Him. With that in mind, I decided it was time to stop walking the fence and fully commit to Jesus.

As of 2025, that was exactly a quarter of a century ago. In my 25 years in the service of the One True God, here’s what I can report to you.

There are those who say life is an accident, that we happened because of some “science” that science itself has never been able to prove. Never once in the history of creation has life sprung from non-life. If you’re as smart as I know you are, then you’ve pieced together that we must have been created in the image of a Creator that transcends space time and life.

We were given math and science as the handwriting of creation and of a perfect system. We were given the Bible, the best and truest document that gives our history as a world and species, a book of hyperlinked with solidly connected facts written thousands of years apart. Lastly, for the creation argument, I’ll leave you with the words of the smartest fictional consulting detective ever written: "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”

So why do I say that Christianity- instead of all the other religions- gives the best evidence of a Creator? The craziest part of that argument is that ironically, nearly all major religions in the world mention one person and acknowledge Him as real: Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Over 20,000 accounts of His life and His impact prove he was real, which is more proof than any other historical figure of all time. I encourage you, believe in Him- He is real, and He is still alive to this very day that you are reading this.

Jesus loves you regardless of your beliefs or non-beliefs, and He wants you to find Him. He came and died a horrible death to save you and me from the gates of Hell itself. We have all sinned (missed the mark of living a perfect and holy life) and deserve death and pain and hell (Romans 3: 21-26). He died to pay our debt; He gave his entire perfect life to make sure we didn’t get what we deserve. While He was alive, all He asked was that we believe in Him, and put our faith in him (Romans 10: 8-11) by committing to live our lives by faith in His words and deeds.

If you are in misery on this earth and you cannot find your happiness and hope, don’t take my word for it, read about Him and His plan. Below this, you will find all the mentioned scripture, and I encourage you to read and consider it. The Bible is a time-tested and proven collection of books and letters from thousands of years ago, and it says everything infinitely better than anyone ever could.

Remember this, God loves you, and He loves me. He loves us enough that He gave us free will to choose, which allows sin and pain in the world, but it leaves us in this world with blueprint on what to do. Jesus suffered more than any of us, and He did absolutely nothing wrong. He wants to know you and be known by you more than anything, and He sheds tears for you and begs you to come to Him. He is the greatest example of a love story to ever exist in this earth’s history, and the best example of how to be a parent, a friend, and anyone else who might ever want to try to understand and live in the complexities of love.

I want you to know that He will be calling you as long as you’re alive. You may have years to accept the call, or you may have only today (Romans 6:22-23).
If any of this sounds like something you would like to know more about, give me or a call and put my quarter-century of walking by faith and the Word to the test. Call day or night. I will drop everything if it means we can talk about the most important conversation in your life, because regardless of how we act on the surface, we were made by God to love others with everything we have, and I love and want the best for you (Matthew 22: 37-40).

If you’re reading this and are already a Christ-follower and are currently serving, send this page to someone you care about. Material wealth, earthly vanity, and life’s comforts should hold no interest to us; the only things we can bring with us are the people we’ve introduced to the Light (John 8:12). If you don’t want to speak yet and want to know what to do, there are many simple and easily remembered ways to explain salvation (often made by much smarter and better people than me) but they all come down to these things:
-Confess your sins. (We have all sinned and deserve death.)
-Repent of your sins (turn away from evil and to God’s ways). (Sin isn’t about dos and don’ts- what sin boils down to is anything that separates us from God). When you mess up, don’t give up!
-Have faith that Jesus Christ is Lord: that He came to this earth, lived a perfect life, died for our sins to give us grace, and rose from the dead three days later, just as the Bible says.
-Confess He is Lord. Ask that He reigns as the Lord of your life and that He helps you leave your old life and ways behind. Have faith that He will lead you in the way you should go.
-Be baptized: wash away your old sinful flesh and be robed with faith. Continually seek Him through prayer and His word and go forth and live a new life with real purpose.

BRANDON McLEMORE (ME): 601-214-5873

JOSH HOOD: 601-552-1061

DWAYNE McLEMORE: 601-214-5807

JOSH McCORMICK: 601-466-9198