WHO AM I TO TALK ABOUT JESUS?

Me Without Christ

Who am I to talk about Jesus? On my own, I am nothing but a sinner scraped from the gutter of my own pride. I was a man splattered with the mud of selfishness, a canvas ruined before the Artist ever touched it. My heart was like a polluted river—cloudy, bitter, and carrying death downstream. I spoke of goodness but drank from the well of my own deceit. Like the prodigal son, I wandered far from the Father’s house, chasing shadows that vanished when I reached for them.

My soul was an unlit room, full of cobwebs and echoes of wasted time. I loved the world, and the world loved me right back into darkness. Anything you could say about sin’s corruption—I wore it. I was every inch the rebel, every bit the hypocrite. I walked after the flesh, feeding the old man that only ever wanted more.

Part of me believed and always wanted to be a good man. But without Christ, I am not a good man. And realizing that, accepting it, taking responsibility for it—those were the steps. Just admit the truth about yourself and ask for help. Christ will take it from there.

Me in Christ

Because then came Jesus. He found me where I had fallen—face down in the mud of my own making—and He lifted me with nail-scarred hands. The blood that dripped from His cross became the crimson paint that covered my stains. The man who had no right to speak His name now speaks it with trembling joy. “By the grace of God I am what I am,” Paul said (1 Corinthians 15:10), and I echo those words with every breath. The same grace that knocked Saul from his horse blinded me to the world and opened my eyes to glory. If He could save me, He can save you. If He could turn a persecutor into a preacher, a thief into a testimony, a broken heart into a burning light—then no one is beyond His reach.

I have every right to talk about Jesus, not because I’m worthy, but because He is. My life has become His living canvas. The stains have become brushstrokes of mercy. The cracks are filled with grace like gold in pottery. And I will not let His grace toward me be in vain. I will use my story, my scars, my past, and my present to glorify Him. For I was dead, but now I live—and my song forever will be, Jesus saves.

Bryan Dewayne Dunaway