Welcome to my world!

Welcome to Crossing Honey Creek, my daily devotional blog.  You might wonder where the name comes from. Well, every morning as I make my way from my house to the office, I cross Honey Creek Bridge on beautiful Grand Lake, as I enter into Grove, Oklahoma on Highway 59.  It is a beautiful scene and offers a wide variety of inspiration as the view changes with the weather and the seasons.  It is amazing how often the seed thoughts for my morning devotionals come to me as I am crossing that bridge into this town that I have come to love.  So I thought I would give the blog a name that reflected the impact of the beauty of where I live on the things that I write. 
I guess I should tell you a little about myself.  My name is Marty Hughes and I am the Pastor of Independent Baptist Church, in Grove.  I was raised in a preacher's home, primarily in Racine, Wisconsin.  I graduated from Racine Baptist School, a small Christian school that was housed in our church there.  I was the valedictorian of my class of three.  I have always said that people brag about being in the top third of their class, I was the top third of my class.  I was young for my grade and worked hard in order to graduate a year early and so I landed on the campus of Baptist Bible College in Springfield, MO at the age of 16.  BBC was at its pinnacle at that time.  I was one of over 1100 freshmen that year.  The entire student body was close to 2500. 
I began attending Cherry Street Baptist Church and became a part of their College and Career Class under the leadership of Doc Boland.  I found myself surrounded by vibrant, passionate Christian young people whose testimonies stirred my heart.  I had always known the gospel, and had made a profession of faith as a six year old child, but I had been under conviction for some time that I wasn't truly saved.  In January of 1977, Dr. B.R. Laken preached an 8-day revival at Cherry Street.  Each service of that revival, I found myself under conviction and I went to the altar trying to discern what the problem was.  On the last night, Dr. Laken preached on "What Must I Do To Be Saved?" and somewhere in the middle of the sermon he said, "The Spirit of God will not always strive with man.  There will come a day when the Spirit will convict you of your need of salvation for the last time.  If you reject Him then, He will leave you alone and allow you to suffer the consequences of your rejection of Christ."  It was as if the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, "If you don't lay down your pride and get saved tonight, you will never have another opportunity."
There were over 800 people in the service that night.  Most of them knew who I was and that I was a Bible college student. But the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, "Are you going to let these people who love you send you to hell?"  So when the invitation was given, I went to the altar and I asked Christ to forgive my sins and come into my heart and save my soul.  Since that day, I have never had another doubt that I was His and He is mine.  That was the day that I was born again and now I am His child.  (To Be Continued...)