My name is Stephen Sawyer; I was raised in a godly Christian home as a pastor’s son, and I accepted Jesus as my Savior at the age of 12.
My life of sin started at a very young age with pornography and an extremely rebellious attitude. The boundaries that my parents placed over me felt very restricting and I felt as if I was being held back from experiencing true freedom and enjoyment of life. So, at the age of 16, I started listening to wrong music, which led me to hanging out with unsaved friends. A year later, I began experimenting with drugs and alcohol.
Over the course of the next four years I lived a life of lies, selfishness, hatred, and hypocrisy toward my parents and everyone around me. I had forsaken God, and lived every day trying to fill that void in my heart with possessions and worldly lusts, all the while just masking my pain and disappointment with drugs.
Regardless of all the pain and heartache I put them through, my parents were so merciful and longsuffering toward me, and they never stopped praying for me, because they believed that God would work a miracle in my life. My parent’s, church’s, and many other people’s prayers were answered in December of 2012, when I tried a new drug and had a severe allergic reaction to it that sent me to the hospital and almost took my life. But God spared me for a specific purpose, and it was there lying in that hospital bed with my parents on either side of me that I surrendered to coming to the Reformers Unanimous Men’s School of Discipleship.
After about a month in the home God really moved, and in prayer, I was broken of my selfish will and completely surrendered my life to Christ. From that day on, the Lord has done a miraculous transforming work in my life!
Through the teaching and my own studying of God’s word, I have learned the truth about myself and the bondage to sin that I was in. But more importantly than that, I learned the glorious truth that true freedom and happiness lies in the very thing I had spent my whole life rejecting, and that is a personal love relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. When I realized the depth of Christ’s love for me, it changed my life forever, and began my life’s pursuit of closeness with my Creator.
The Lord has truly made me new. He has given me a desire to live an honest, upright, crucified Christian life. He has taken every sin that I thought would bring me satisfaction, and replaced them with Jesus the Living Water and the Bread of Life, who brings present and eternal satisfaction! The love of Jesus has transformed me, and it is only His infinite love that can overcome the pull of this world.
– Stephen Sawyer
One Response
Thank you for sharing your amazing story Stephen.May the Lord continue to bless You & yours richly.
In His Service, James Wilder
30+ years alcohol & drug free…..Only because of Christ.