Jesus said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). Again He said, "Ye must be born again" (John 3:7). This is how I became a born again Christian and was called to the ministry. Perhaps my story can help you learn about the new birth.

At seven years old I went to church for the first time in my life. I got all dressed up and went to Mass. Nobody took me. I went to the Catholic Church down the street all by myself that Sunday morning.

I thought, "It’s Easter. You’re supposed to go to church." I had never been to church before in my life. I had never been taught the Bible. The only religious background I had was learning the Rosary from an uncle who later became a monk in a Catholic monastery. I knew how to pray the Lord’s Prayer. That’s all I knew.

That Easter morning I got up and said, "I’m going to go to church, and I have never been to church in my life, but you’re supposed to go to church on Easter. I don’t know why you’re supposed to go to church on Easter, but I’m going to go." I put on my best clothes and walked down the street to St. Teresa’s Catholic Church. It’s still right there on the corner of Fargo Street and Glendale Boulevard, in Echo Park, near downtown Los Angeles. The building looks the same as it did that Sunday back in 1948. They didn’t use English back then in the Mass. The service was all in Latin. I sat down and listened to it. Though it was Latin, it was all "Greek" to me! I couldn’t figure out what they were doing. Pretty soon a man came out in a white robe. He did this and that. He had his back facing the people. It all seemed very nice to me, although I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then a bell rang, "ding-a-ling-a-ling," three times. Something else happened, and all the people got up, row by row and began to go down to the front of the church.

I thought to myself, "I’ve never been to church. I’m going to have the full experience." I got up and went to the front. The man in the white robe put a wafer in my mouth. I chewed it with my mouth open. Some people looked at me out of the corner of their eyes. I guess you weren’t supposed to chew it. I was a real heathen! I didn’t know anything about religion. I was a seven-year-old boy who had never been to church in his life.

"Well," I thought, "that’s a good experience." So I went again and again to Mass! I always chewed down the wafer. I had no idea what I was doing, but I enjoyed it. It was quiet in that church, and I would go there alone when there wasn’t anyone else around. I’d go in and look at the pictures and the statues. I didn’t know what it was all about, but I liked it. It was quiet there, and I would go there and pray the Our Father. That was the only prayer I knew. I’d pray the Lord’s Prayer three or four times, and then I would go out. I went there many times like that.

One day, when I was thirteen years old, the people who lived next door invited me to go with them to the First Baptist Church of Huntington Park, California. If it hadn’t been for the kindness and example of Dr. and Mrs. Henry M. McGowan, I doubt if I would ever have become a real Christian. They invited me to church with their daughter and son who was about my age. I said, "That’s good. I’ll go." So I went with them and their son to church.

When we went in, I noticed it wasn’t like the other church. There weren’t any statues or pictures. They sang a few songs and I sat way up in the balcony. There were hundreds of people there. It was a big Baptist church. One man was leading a song, and then another man got up. He was an old man in a light gray suit, and he had on a bright green tie. They called him an evangelist. The old man in the bright green tie began to yell. I didn’t pay too much attention. I don’t recall anything he said. All I remember was his bright green tie swinging back and forth, and him yelling. I thought, "That’s nice." He was yelling in English. He wasn’t speaking Latin like they did in the other church. He didn’t have on a white robe like the man in the other church. He was yelling in English and his bright green tie was swinging back and forth. I don’t remember a thing he said - only his yelling and the swinging tie.

When he got through yelling another man stood up and said, "Now, you come." They sang a song. A few people walked to the front of the church. The son of the people who took me to church got up and went to the front. I thought, "That’s good, they’re going to get a wafer put in their mouth." I thought they would go to the front and get something to eat, like we did in the Catholic Church. So I got up and walked to the front. I wanted the full experience. They took us all into another room, and they said to come back and be baptized. I thought, "I don’t know what that is, but it sounds good. I’ll be back."

So my little friend and I went back to the next service. They put white robes on us. Then the pastor, Dr. Pegg, pointed at me and said, "I want this boy to come here." I got up and went over to him. He said, "I want to use you to show the others what I am going to do in the baptism pool." He took hold of me and showed us how he would let us down in the water with a handkerchief over our mouths.

OK, we were ready. I walked up some stairs and looked down into a deep pool of water. The pastor motioned to me and I walked down into the water. He put a handkerchief over my nose and put me down under the water and brought me up out of the water. He whispered, "Go up there." And I walked up a staircase, and they gave me a towel.

Now I was a Baptist! That was nice. I liked it. I didn’t know what Baptists believed. I hadn’t really listened to the sermon. I knew nothing at all about the new birth. No one had counseled me in any way. But I was glad to be a Baptist!

About four years later I became a Baptist preacher. Here’s how it happened. We had a new pastor. He was a big man with a happy smile on his face. His name was Dr. Maples. As I listened to him preach, I began to think, "I wish I were like that man." Somebody asked me the other day, "How were you called to preach?" I’m telling you right now. I used to sit on the third row, right on the aisle. I used to listen to that big man preach. And I got to thinking I’d like to be like him. I believe now that God was calling me to preach in this way, even before I was born again.

Now, in that church, they gave an invitation along this line, "If you’d like to join the church, surrender to preach, be saved, join the choir, or if you have any other need, you come forward while we sing." Then we’d sing. That Sunday morning, I thought, "I’m going to surrender to preach." I didn’t know what that was, but I knew I had to do it to be like Dr. Maples.

So, I came forward and "surrendered to preach" to "be like that man." Not long afterwards, they licensed me to preach. Now I was a licensed Southern Baptist preacher. I still have the license on the wall of my office. That was great! It was easy!

There was only one problem. I wasn’t a real Christian. I had never been born again. I thank God for the good influence of the people next door, who kept taking me to church. If it hadn’t been for their kindness I’m sure my life would have been ruined. I thank God for the church. They were preaching the gospel. But I hadn’t listened.

I knew something was wrong. I didn’t have peace. During this period I felt like I might not be a real Christian. I felt like I could never be a preacher. I got a little room in downtown Los Angeles. I walked the streets at night. I thought, "I can’t be like that man. I can’t preach. I don’t know what to do." I walked the streets at night. I felt terrible.

One night, I walked all the way around the Old Plaza, next to Olvera Street. Then I walked over to Chinatown. I walked up a street and turned right. I was just walking. I didn’t have anything else to do. I went down to the end of the street and I looked up, and it said, "Chinese Baptist Church." I thought, "There are Baptists down here!" So I went up and knocked on the door. A woman named Lorna Lum answered the door. I had let my beard grow out. It’s the only time in my life I ever did. She was scared by seeing a man with a black beard, and she looked at me again, and finally invited me in. She is the wife of Dr. Murphy Lum, now a pastor in Orange County. This Chinese lady said, "We have church tomorrow. Do you want to come?" I said, "I will."

I went back to my room and shaved off my beard. The next morning I went to the First Chinese Baptist Church. I joined that church a few Sundays later.

I was going along in the Chinese church, and I thought, "I’ve got to be like that man, Dr. Maples. I’ve got to preach." The next fall I went to Bible school. But I flunked out. My study habits were just too poor. But, just before I failed, something happened. The school brought in a man named Dr. Charles J. Woodbridge. Dr. Woodbridge preached through I and II Peter in the chapel services each morning for a week.

The morning I got saved I remember just as plainly as if it were yesterday. Dr. Woodbridge got up to II Peter 3:13. He read the words, "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth…" He stopped there. Then he really got into the verse. He said, "They don’t have anything to hope for, but we look for new heavens and a new earth. They don’t have any meaning or purpose in life, but we look for a new heaven and a new earth." I thought, "I don’t want to be with them. I want this hope that Jesus gives." I looked to Christ by faith. Many things happened in that moment, but the most important thing was this: I came to Christ and united with Him and was cleansed from my sins by His Blood.

I went through seven agonizing, excruciatingly horrible years trying to be a Christian without being born again. It was the most terrible experience in my life. Trying to live as a Christian, and even trying to be a preacher, and not being born again, was an awful experience. That is why the new birth and conversion are the themes of all my preaching. I looked to Jesus. I came to Him. He became as real to me, in that moment, as though He had been standing in the room with me. Jesus Christ forgave my sins and became my Saviour.

That morning, as Dr. Woodbridge preached, I looked to Jesus Christ for the first time. How could I have been through all that religion without looking to Jesus? Well, it wasn’t hard. I was looking to the Bible. I was looking to the hymns. I was looking to the choir. I was looking to the man’s bright green tie. I was looking to all the externals, but I wasn’t really looking to Jesus.

You know, I had even played Judas Iscariot in the Passion Play at Easter in the Baptist church in Huntington Park. I worked on the makeup of the Christ. I worked on the sets for the play. But, to me, Jesus was somebody who lived a long, long time ago. It was awful what they did to Him a long, long time ago. It was a shame. But it was all a mystery to me. Why did they torture Him like that? Why did they crucify Him? I didn’t understand that He died to pay for my sins. It wasn’t the church’s fault. They preached the gospel, but I wasn’t listening. But, you know, I didn’t have any more awareness of who Jesus was then than when I looked at those stained glass windows in a Roman Catholic Church as a small boy. It was all a mystery, something that happened so long ago, until that morning when Dr. Woodbridge told me to look to Jesus. For the first time in my whole life, I looked to Jesus Christ by faith.

It’s never been the same since that day. After a few months, I went to my pastor, Dr. Timothy Lin, and said, "Pastor, I was never born again before. But I believe I was born again a few months ago at Bible school." He listened to my testimony, and he baptized me at the Chinese Baptist Church. I was baptized twice. The first time I was baptized lost. The second time, I was born again before I got baptized, as the Bible teaches. Baptism doesn’t save you. You need to look to Jesus and be saved.

It isn’t hard to be converted and born again. We make it hard. Anybody can be converted, but you have to make time for church every Sunday, no matter what happens or you cannot be a real Christian. Do not let school or work keep you from church. Do not go to Hell and burn in the flames forever. Look to Jesus for salvation and be in church every single Sunday. That’s called "faith" and "repentance."

Do you know why people won’t trust Jesus? Too much self-esteem! You say, "Oh, I’m not that bad. Somebody else needs to trust Jesus and be born again, but I’m not too bad." I doubt you are as good as I was. I didn’t go to dances. I didn’t drink. You know, I don’t know how to dance even now. I was in church all the time. But I needed to be born again. Let’s face it, you probably aren’t as good as I was. If I needed to be born again, so do you.

Why not write to me? I will do my best to help you look to Jesus Christ and be born again. Conversion can be as real to you as it is to me. Your sins can all be washed away in Jesus’ Blood, so you will no longer be guilty in the sight of God. The only thing God requires is that you turn away from the world, come into the local church, and look to Jesus Christ in saving trust. Remember, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).