(This is the testimony of Stephen Hagget, given at his baptism on Sunday May 12 at Penzance Baptist Church. Stephen is 25 and currently Head of Planning in the NHS in Cornwall. What follows has been adapted from the original version in that church’s magazine.) 

Just four weeks before I started coming to church again I was sitting with my dear sister Ali in our home in Mullion telling her I would have to leave home as I could no longer cope with all the Christian comments, dinner-table Graces - and especially ‘Gospel Gems’ on the wall of the toilet!

Having been raised in a Christian home, I was used to the Bible, prayer and hearing of the things of God. For many years however these were only words to me and I paid no heed to them. I had forsaken the God to whom I owed everything. I became increasingly convinced of my ability to find my own way.

But increasingly God through his Holy Spirit was making me aware of my unworthiness, my foolishness and my own arrogance. He was graciously humbling me and making me aware of my own desperately hopeless position. Bringing me to my knees before him, he directed me to the only true source of happiness - the salvation offered freely to all men in the cross of Calvary. God's only Son had voluntarily taken human form and had suffered the pain and anguish of a humiliating death.

Truths that had for so long been words of hymns to me were now becoming realities. For the death of the Lord Jesus Christ was now a personal death for me - it was my sin and unworthiness that had caused it. It was his love for me and not some paltry nail that had caused him to remain on the cross and suffer the agony of separation from his Father.

It was only when the Holy Spirit enabled me to realise that this was a vivid and living truth and not a cold piece of fiction that the process of humbling me was truly advancing! Things slowly began to change in my life. I suddenly found myself wanting to question, wanting to learn. It was only when one day - and I can vividly remember it - that I heard myself arguing with someone at work that creation was the only possible solution to the beginning of the world and realising that I believed it, that I knew that something was happening to me.

I carried on asking questions and I carried on coming to church, hearing God's word and receiving of the life, warmth and prayers of God's people. Over time it became clear to me that everything in my outlook had changed - I was increasingly trying, though then as now regularly failing, to put God at the centre of my life. What 12 months ago I felt would have been impossible had actually happened: I had become a Christian!

And it is by God's grace that it has happened. One of the most difficult lessons I have had to learn is that nothing that I can do can possibly generate my own salvation. I needed to throw myself completely into his hands, to fall down before Calvary’s cross and cry out for mercy.

He gave his life for me, I now want to devote my life to him. Accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as my only personal Saviour has done so much for me - it has given me a peace I often craved but never found. It has changed my attitude to life, work and my relationships with people.

The love of God's people and the warmth and love of this church in Penzance have been enormous factors in God's dealings with me. I feel joyful, sad, happy, convicted and repentant all at once. I have also become aware that God's amazing plan for me has been unfolding over many years. Since becoming a Christian, one of the most exciting and moving things I have noticed is how many people had been praying for me over so many years! Even people I didn't know have told me how much they have been praying. This has really taught me the power of prayer.

A dear Christian friend, who is now in glory, said to me several years ago, a few weeks before he died, that he might not see me again in this life but he hoped he would in the next. His aged wife, nearing her end, is praying for me tonight. I never saw the man again, and I may never see his wife again but praise God I will one day see them both in glory. 

For yonder a light shines eternal,
Which spreads through the valley of gloom;
Lord Jesus, resplendent and regal,
Drives fear far away from the tomb.
Our God is the end of the journey,
His pleasant and glorious domain:
For there are the children of mercy,
To praise him for Calvary’s pain.

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