From a “double life” to the life-transforming discovery of God’s grace
I was 16 years old when I first heard the gospel. My sister had moved to live in London and returned home one weekend with the extraordinary news that she had become a Christian. I had never heard anyone say that before.
We were not a religious family. We didn’t go to church, have Bibles or pray. God wasn’t in our lives so this was quite a surprise.
When she explained what it meant to be a Christian, I was amazed. No one had ever told me before who Jesus was, why he lived, what happened when he died and that he actually did rise from the dead and could be known and even “received“. I had never heard such language. I was captivated and to my surprise knelt in my home and asked Christ to come into my life and he did! I felt it.
Sadly, nothing was said about becoming his disciple. I simply invited him in and knew I was now a Christian. I knew I was forgiven and would one day go to heaven. Amazing! Nothing was said about a change of lifestyle. I simply started going to church every Sunday morning. I rarely missed.
Church was formal in those days. I noticed on the wall of the large Baptist Church I attended said “do not speak in the sanctuary“ so I didn’t get to know any other Christians. Meanwhile, I loved being with my very ungodly old friends and enjoyed the life we embraced, which was far from Christian. After four years of my “double life“ on one Sunday I was suddenly arrested by a sermon calling me to quit living that way and be a proper Christian.
I felt completely “nailed“ by God and responded resolutely at first it was awful. I lost all my friends and hardly knew anyone at church, but through myself in the to the Church program endeavouring to be a proper Christian another significant thing began to happen, namely that I began to read Christian books, mostly stories of amazing missionaries who had lived wonderful adventurous lives and accomplished extraordinary things.
I used to commute each day to London from my hometown of Brighton and played cards there and back. Now I read avidly (two hours a day and read 50+ books in the first year). God was beginning to draw me into something deeper.
Eventually, I left my job, attended Bible college and became a pastor, but certainly something was missing. My Christianity was now fairly rigid, keeping the rules and trying to be much better than my former compromised self. One day I met a remarkable Christian pastor, one of the happiest men I had ever met, one who clearly loved God wholeheartedly but was not at all religious.
My Christianity had become somewhat legalistic. He introduced me to something entirely different, namely the glorious biblical theme of Grace. Before I understood grace properly much of my Christian life was based on fulfilling my duty. If at any time I felt I was falling short of the high standard I tried setting myself, I would try to compensate by working even harder.
The Bible teaches us that Christians have an enemy called “Satan” whose name means “accuser” who accuses us continually and causes a miserable shadow to cloud over our lives called “condemnation“, which we tend to try to overcome by more effort.
Grace teaches us that when Christ died for us, all condemnation was removed. Jesus not only took our guilt entirely, he gave us his own spotless righteousness as a gift. We are all declared righteous and no one can condemn us. We are completely discharged from law keeping as a way to lift the Christian life.
When I first grasped this, it was almost as though I had become a Christian all over again. Almost too good to be true! The sense of freedom and joy was wonderful. It has now been my joy to preach this biblical truth for many years and many have testified to transformed lives.
Of the early Christians the Bible says that when Jesus came to them after death and resurrection they could not believe for joy! Grace sets us free from condemnation and guilt driven Christianity and brings us into a full flood of God‘s love and mercy. We feel drawn into the Father‘s love again and again. Like the returning prodigal, we are amazed at his full acceptance and delight.
About The Author
Terry Virgo is the founder of Newfrontiers, a worldwide family of churches together on a mission to establish the kingdom of God by restoring the church, making disciples, training leaders and planting churches. Newfrontiers serves 1,500+ churches across 70 countries.
A well-known Bible teacher, Terry speaks at conferences internationally and hosted the Stoneleigh Bible week and annual Together on a Mission conference in the UK, which drew thousands of delegates from around the world. At the final Together on a Mission conference, in 2011, Newfrontiers was redefined as a network of apostolic spheres worldwide, and Terry passed the leadership on to fifteen apostolic leaders.
Terry has written several books, including The Spirit Filled Church, God’s Lavish Grace, God Knows You’re Human, The Tide is Turning and No Well-Worn Paths which is his biography.
2 thoughts on “From Religion to Relationship: How Grace Set Me Free”
Thanks to God and the author.
I jumped to open this as soon as I saw the title because I have a similar story.
I m 58 years and only came to understand Grace some months ago! I am Catholic and was raised in church by Christian parents. Church was second nature in our home.
Of course I always knew the words- Jesus, Son of God, Gospel, Salvation, Grace, Forgiveness, Sin,New man, Old man, etc but I never had the revelation behind them. So I tried to obey the 10 commandments and of course failed woefully so I always had this emptiness in me I had no idea what to do with it. I was constantly in anger, self condemnation, diverse wilful sins, etc. I was never I mean NEVER truly happy. I felt something was missing but never knew what it was so I stumbled through life hurting everyone I encountered and hurting myself much more.
But truly God is rich in Mercy and started teaching me Grace by speaking some phrases to me as soon as I got married. Of course I didn’t understand Him but he kept on-
2001 – (voice) Get close to Jesus and you will know His mystery.
(Me) Mystery? Why not mysteries, does Jesus have only one mystery?
(Voice) The mystery is Jesus is the son of God.
2018- In a dream a man mentioned Ephesians 2:20 ( but I erroneously heard 20:20 so it didn’t make sense to me)
2019 – I heard – ” you are part of the building that has for its foundation the apostles and prophets” It was only in 2026 I connected this to Ephesians 2:20 which was what I really heard in 2018.
2025 – I saw in a dream Ephesians and John written beneath it.
2026- I felt led to start reading Ephesians and it still wasn’t making sense to me. Then one day I ‘stumbled’ across Romans 1:16 , Paul speaking said – I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation for those who believe. ..’ and a light came on in my head and some how I understood that whatever the Gospel meant was explained in Ephesians and that was what I needed to get salvation ( which I understood as not just a ticket to heaven but the solution to my empty life now)
So I began reading/ studying Ephesians and very slowly I started to understand the concept of Grace and the identity it bestowed on me. And I started to get excited about life. I felt like a prisoner released from long years of incarceration. The chains started falling off.
One day I began to worry about my life as I woke up to the mountains of personal problems still unresolved. Then in a whisper I heard – IDENTITY. And immediately I understood it was the Holy Spirit reminding me of my identity in Christ as chosen, redeemed, adopted into God’s family, made a child of God, forgiven, sealed with the Holy Spirit, seated with Christ, etc, realities I had been reading about in Ephesians and all my fears instantly dropped.
I have been living in that reality and growing in it daily for about three months now.
While I am grateful to God for His patience to teach me Himself what my Church didn’t or maybe I was too blind to understand their own presentation in the Mass, sacraments, etc I am now concerned for the many who are yet to have this knowledge and live free for Christ.
I try to explain Grace to individuals whenever I can and as a pre marriage class teacher I now lay Grace as the foundation before trying to explain the structured teaching on love, respect and forgiveness in marriage.
I pray more churches do more to explain the Gospel constantly. There are way too many ignorant Christians who are trying hard and failing to obey God by their power instead of living a life of sweet obedience by receiving the Love already given to us in Christ Jesus as a free gift.
So the question remains – how do you receive a gift you don’t know has been offered and is still on offer to you?
Hi Godwin,
We were thrilled to hear from you as to how God has been working in your life and to see your two comments for the two posts you read.
At the end, you write: ‘I pray more churches do more to explain the Gospel constantly. There are way too many ignorant Christians who are trying hard and failing to obey God by their power instead of living a life of sweet obedience by receiving the Love already given to us in Christ Jesus as a free gift. So the question remains – how do you receive a gift you don’t know has been offered and is still on offer to you?’
We would like to ask if we might print your message to work as a Guest Post – this will be one way to get your message out. The other thing is to ask you to keep sharing various pages from the site with friends, family and churches.
May God bless you with ever deepening awareness of His love and grace for you.
On behalf of C4L Team,
Olaf