“I was the classic cultural Christian. Every Sunday, dressed to the nines, me and the kids we would haul ourselves in, we’d sit on the right side of the church, two pews back, all up front so everybody could see us.”

J. Michael McKoy had everything going for him except a true relationship with God. He also had drinking problem.

“And then something happened.”

God loves us too  much to leave us in the mess of our sin. He wants more from our lives than the bare minimum for the sake of looking good. God used a sermon to speak directly McKoy and change his heart forever.

“He had about a twenty foot long chain, and this was not a plastic chain, this was a real chain. The links were probably three to four inches long. He started out the sermon by saying,”

‘Look up and down your row. You see those people sitting next to you?‘ And he said, ‘The first three of you over there, you’re alcoholics, and two of you don’t even know it. The next one of you are into pornography. That’s just sick and God does not allow that in a house of worship or in your temple so stop it. Next two, gambling problems. The next one, you’re having an affair. And the last two of you, you just don’t know it yet, but you’re bound for a hard, hard hit if you don’t turn your life over to Christ.’

This visual woke McKoy up to the danger of his addiction and his need for a true relationship with God.

“Every time he would mention one of these addictions, he’d take that chain and he put it around his neck one more time, and he would walk back and forth. He nailed me. He nailed me right in the heart because this heavy chain, this heavy burden, and mine was alcoholism, it had finally come home to roost someplace in my heart and I began to feel God break through. But it wasn’t the God I had known for 50 years.”

Is God trying to speak to you? Are you carrying a heavy burden around your neck? Turn to God, leave it at the foot of the cross and find freedom in Him.

Highlight – When God breaks through

When God breaks through