(This blog is part of series on famous people in Church history.  It is written as if the person himself were telling you about their life.  Paul says “These things happened as our examples” 1 Corinthians 10:6,11.)

            Hello!  My name is Abraham Lincoln.  I’m known for many things: freeing the slaves, winning the Civil War, and keeping our country united.  However the thing I did that mattered most was accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior.  The scary part is that I almost didn’t do it.  I tried to work my way into heaven until 1 1/2 years before I died when I came to a knowledge of the truth.  But all this is getting ahead of my story.  Let me go back to the beginning.

            My ancestors were Quakers from Berks County, Pa., who moved to Virginia, then Kentucky.  I was born February 12, 1809, in a crude log cabin near Hodgenville, Kentucky.  I had one sister, Sarah.  My father, Tom Lincoln, was an uneducated farmer.  When he was a young man he went to a camp meeting led by Peter Cartwright and, in response to the Gospel being presented, stood, raised his hands, and started dancing around.  He grabbed the hand of Nancy Hawks, who had also just accepted Jesus as her Savior.  A week later they were married.

            My mother read the Bible to me often as I sat on her lap.  That is one of my earliest memories and left a strong, life-long impression of me.  Years later when asked why I was so honest (“Honest Abe” they called me) I gave the credit to those times on her lap hearing the Bible.  My mother’s last words to me were “Keep God’s commandments.”

            A couple years before my mother died my father moved us to Indiana.  When I was in my teens there I helped him build a church and I became its first janitor.  My education was home-spun.  I was home-schooled by my mother, and mainly by myself as I borrowed all I could find to read.  I read the Bible until I knew much of it by heart and could quote chapter after chapter.  I also read Aesop’s Fables, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim’s Progress, and the lives of Washington, Clay and Franklin. 

            I entered law and developed a strong hatred for slavery.  When I was 33 I married Mary Todd.  It was not the marriage I would have liked it to be.  She was into occult practices and influenced me in that area sometimes. 

            Two of our four sons died early in life.  The death of little Willie hit me hard .  I prayed for his healing but it never came.  I was almost destroyed by grief.  A Christian nurse who was with Willie tried to point me to God and gave me the plan of salvation, but I couldn’t see it then.  You see, I believed in God but was trying to get to heaven by living a good life.  I believed all the right things in my mind, and know the Bible well, but I had never submitted by proud spirit to Him.  I knew the Bible was His book, the most important ever.  I often went to it for comfort, especially during the dark days of the Civil War.  I knew the Bible, but not its Author. 

            I prayed regularly, for myself and for others.  I saw God answer prayers for me, my family, and my law clients in very miraculous ways.  I always gave Him the credit.  I can see now it was one of the ways He was trying to bring me closer to him.

            I attended church each Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, but I never joined a church.  Once I lightly said that if I ever found a church good enough to join, I’d join it.  I must admit there was some truth in that statement, though.  I never did affiliate with any church, something I should have done.  Toward the end of my life I seriously considered it, but never did do it. 

            During the Civil War there were several large revivals in the Northern Army.  I heard about them, but didn’t think I had a need.  That is, I didn’t see my need until Gettysburg.  That bloody battle brought home in a very real way the death and suffering that the war brought on us all.  Can you imagine — 50 million died in that war!   As I walked around Gettysburg and saw the graves and destruction, with death everywhere in the air, I was crushed.  I later wrote to a friend, “When I left Springfield and went to Washington I was not a Christian.  When I left Washington to go to Gettysburg I was not a Christian.  But at Gettysburg I consecrated my heart to Christ.”  In that place of death, God gave me new life.  I realized I could not trust in my own efforts to keep His commandments to remove my sins, but only in what He did for me on the cross.  I told a friend, “My heart was changed.  I loved the Savior.”  From then on I told people of my faith in Christ as God and Savior.  I wanted to make a public confession and join a church but never did. 

            My final conversation with Mary in the theater where I died was of my Savior.  I was talking to her about a trip to Palestine.  “We can see Bethlehem where He was born.  We can go to Bethany.  We could go up to Jeru              .”   Then came the shot that ended my life and sent me immediately to the presence of my Savior.  My thoughts were on Him when I died, and the next thing I knew I was in His glorious presence. 

            My message to you would be to make sure that you don’t put her faith in knowing the Bible and living a godly life.  That will never do it.  Only as you submit your will to His, as you humbly receive His free gift of salvation, will you ever have a salvation.  That will begin a personal relationship with Him that is greater than anything this earth has to offer.  Trust Him, life for Him, tell others about Him, and serve Him with all your heart.  I’ll see you when you get to heaven!