Eric Tippin

            I was seventeen and held the title of “President of Christian Action.”  I also assumed that I held the title of “Christian” (a natural prerequisite to my presidential office).  But my heart was a bleak and barren wasteland of lust, pride and all manner of sin without guilt. And I knew it.

            It was a cold Friday night in December in the two thousand and fifth year of our LORD; Berean Academy was playing a basketball game, and I—being a student at that distinguished institution—was attending.  I was with my friend (and now fellow Ink Society member) Matthew Paden. That night we had suffered a disappointment, which seemed much larger than its actual size because of our inexperience with truly large letdowns. That letdown and the story surrounding it will not be chronicled here, but it is important to note that it involved hypocrisy and it resulted in our leaving the basketball game and making the walk to my home two blocks away, carrying twenty-four ounce sodas. We lounged on couches in my family’s basement, talked about how wronged we had been, and drank our sodas as only victims can do. The conversation turned from the topic at hand to general misery, and then a miracle happened.

            High school is a much romanticized but, in truth, bland time. The majority of students make so many mistakes—morally, rationally, relationally, romantically—that those aberrances become commonplace. And who wants to listen to a story in which a torrent of mistakes makes it nearly impossible to feel the thrill of moral victories?  I don’t; I sure don’t. But I lived that story for years. The prayer I had prayed at six asking Jesus to, “please come into my heart,” produced none of the Spirit’s fruit in me. At seventeen, I had no awareness of the presence or the existence of God; I was unloving, morose, divisive, guiltless, shamefully lustful, self-righteous without the trace of righteousness about me, and I had no desire to do good. Yet in my own eyes, I was a Christian, for I knew the way to salvation and mentally assented to it. What a disgrace I was to the name of Jesus!

            But that night, the shame of my duplicitous actions became too much. As I lay there on a couch, sipping my soda I said, “Matt, I’m a loser”

            “How so?” he replied, a bit surprised—not at the fact of me being a looser but at my sudden outburst.

            “I’m not who people think I am. People think I’m this nice guy, a model of a Christian young person, but I don’t read the Bible outside of school; I never spend time with God; I have so many sinful thoughts I don’t even try to control . . . I’m just not who people think I am; I’m a loser!”

            Frank W. Boreham tells the story of a young man named James Hannington who, though having received his ordination in the church, knew he was “not fit for the kingdom of God.” The things he had done for the church “did not relieve his deep spiritual embarrassment, for, whilst he dared not look back, he felt that he was unfit to go on.” Like this man, I carried on with a life in the name of Christ, without a heart toward Him. Though my outward actions had gained me the title of “Christian Action President” there was no inward reality to support this. James Hannington’s conversion happened when he received a letter from a friend telling him the familiar story of the transforming work of Christ. What happened next is recorded in his diary on July 15 of 1874: “I was in bed at the time, reading . . . I sprang out of bed and leaped about the room rejoicing and praising God that Jesus died for me. From that day to this, I have lived under the shadow of his wings in the assurance that I am His and He is mine! ” This news of Jesus dying for sinners was nothing new to the youth, but at once, through the Holy Spirit’s work, its profundity was revealed. And just like James Hannington one hundred and thirty-one years before—as I was lying on that basement couch, sipping my soda—I suddenly understood a reality I had known my entire mentally-aware life: “I’m a sinner! I’m a dirty rotten sinner, and I can’t be good on my own! Jesus died for me, and I need him!” How many preachers and teachers had told me this? How many times had it been said to me that I needed a savior because I was a sinner, and yet this December night of all nights I learned that truth by the only teacher could put in me a new heart to understand His love.

            This epiphany was the product of a short moment, and after a bit of a pause, Matthew Paden, in all his practical wisdom said,

            “So what are you gonna do?”

            “Well” I said, “I don’t want to deny Christ. I’m gonna to start actually following him.” And this was the first moment in my life I truly wanted that. I was converted; I had a new heart.

            “Good deal” Matt said.

            Yes Matt, a very good deal.

            That night I sat down to spend time with the God who saved me. I began with reading just one chapter of Proverbs every day and praying, but I was a new creation. My new heart longed to do what was good, though failure was (and is) still a regular part of my life. And when failures come, I find no pleasure in the sin that marks them. One simple truth has transformed my life: “I am a sinner. I need a savior!”

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

-Eric Tippin

In my brother’s chair in Roeland Park, Kansas

February 26, 2011