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Jose E. Meza - Los Angeles, California Print E-mail
My name is Jose Meza and I would like to share with you my conversion to Christ. I was born in the city of Hollywood, California in 1977 and I was raised in a city of the San Gabriel Valley called EI Monte until I was about seventeen years of age. The home where I was brought up was, a catholic home my mother was a very religious woman she would try to keep all the sacraments and sent us off to catholic school up until we were eight years old. Since this was the case of my childhood I hadn't heard of the Gospel & I never heard what Salvation was. Both of my parents were illegal aliens, which had come over to the United States from Tecolotlan, Jalisco Mexico in order to try to make a better life for their family. As I was growing up I began to notice that what I had been taught in catholic school was not as it appeared to be. They told me that if a person would do well and do good things that this would take them to heaven. But those children who lied and did bad things would go to hell but when I would go home and back to my neighborhood I saw that it was, entirely different. Both of my parents drank heavily & the neighborhood I lived in was infested with drugs, gangs, & violence and I noticed that nobody was trying to do anything good.

When I turned 12 yrs old I began to long for friendship and a sense of wanting to belong. A group of boys came to me, boys that I knew from the neighborhood, and asked if I wanted to hang out with them. I said yes not willing to pass us the chance to belong. Later on these same boys let some time go by and told me that if I wanted to continue to hang out with them that I would have to make it official and to make it official they would have to initiate me into their crowd. I didn't know it at the time but what I was getting into was a gang. The idea that I had of gangs and what these boys had of gangs had been different I was under the impression that everything would continue on as it did before. These boys began to introduce me to different things and ideas. They introduced me to burglary, shoplifting, petty theft, smoking, and that school was for "losers". They also told me that I was no longer under the Authority of my parents; that they were my parents now.

What had begun when I was twelve years of age led up to the next part of my life when I was 15 yrs of age but I never thought it would take me this far. By this time I was already very talented at the things that they taught me and was just seeing where the next step would take me. The Bible says, "the works of the flesh are manifest, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness and lasciviousness" (Gal. 5:19). They are manifested in the sight of a Holy God and this is why God has declared, "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23) and again saying to us "But the scripture hath concluded all under Sin that the promise by Faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe" (Gal. 3:22). Both of my parents were hardworking people and taught me that whatever you have you are supposed to work for honestly and if you don't work you don't eat. This strong work ethic stuck with me and I am thankful for that. As I began to move up in the gang lifestyle mo!
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seniority was given to me. In order to move up in the gang you have to prove yourself, thievery, fighting, prison time, and even murder can do this. I began to hang out with the older crowd a crowd that was made up of ex-convicts; men who had already years in the gang and had spent time in prison and other youth like myself. These men began to introduce me to other evil deeds such as drugs, extortion, & firearms. I began to use drugs beginning with marijuana, & then I gradually moved to cocaine, PCP, and freebase. My family & I had not gotten along to well because of my drug addiction, lifestyle and reputation. I thought that my family hated me and so I would run away for days at a time, party and then come back, but the hate in me grew so much more for thinking that my family had abandoned me. My home was sometimes living off of friends, the streets, or if I came from partying I would pass out somewhere and wake up in the morning not knowing where I was

I never really wanted live the Life I had lived. Deep down inside of me I always knew I had been made for something but I never knew what it was. The Holy Bible confirms this, to us when it says,” that we should be to praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ" (Eph' 1:12). Thus confirming to us that we have been made to glorify God through praise of what he has done for us. The bible also tells us "So GOD created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them" (Gen. 1:27). I was tired of this life and I, wanted to get it strait but I didn't know how. In the year of 1994 before my seventeenth birthday my parents decided that they had enough taking into account economic problems that they had they said that they were going to move somewhere far away. They asked if I wanted to go with then and said that this might be an opportunity to change my life and I could leave the gang and start over in a brand new way. I took them up on their offer and we moved 40 miles west to the smaller town of Montclair. I thought that this was a new opportunity for me to turn over a new leaf and I really, could start over. I finally dropped out of school for good and found a job with my father. After living in this town for six months I met up with a whole new crowd. This crowd was the same type as before, "gangsters" and youth without any direction in their life and before I knew It I was back to doing the same things I used to do. Some of this new crowd was younger than me made up of mostly 15-17 year olds and now I was the one introducing the teaching as I also my self had been taught the crime life We began to hang out together and I began to use drugs again although by this time I had learned to manufacture, and distribute drugs.

In the year of 1996 the gang and myself began to have problems with rival gangs. It started with scuffles one on one but then escalated to rumbles, and then shootings. One of, my friends from the gangs whose call sign was "Cartoon" had an older brother that was a professing Christian and would have " bible studies at his home. Steve, as was his real name never told me about what we would have called "Church" the meetings in his brother’s home, and I think it was because the gang saw it as a sign of weakness. Around this time two missionaries associated with the assembly in Long Beach, California had been having the bible studies in the house of my friend's brother. They new the family and "Cartoon" quite well, and had preached the gospel to them but unfortunately my friend, "Cartoon" was murdered by one of the rival gangs, and it was during that’ time that the brethren started a series of meetings in the area and would drive around the neighborhood and invite us to the meetings. It was on one of those occasions that I was out on the street, where a blue van pulled up and asked us if we wanted to go a bible study. I didn't know what they were talking about because I was not familiar with what a Bible Study was, but the guy that was with me did, he was another member of our gang we called “lonely” and he had been to the meetings before. He suggested that we shouldn't go but perhaps afterwards because they serve good food and we can go later to eat. We went that night and as I walked into the house where the meeting was, I saw something that I had never seen before at I least not in my house or with my friends. It was harmony and happiness that I saw in these people it was the fact that they were happy. I thought to myself "what do these people have to be happy about, I don't see any party going on", because that is where I was finding my happiness. But deep down inside I was yearning for what I saw in these people, it was something that I had been searching for all my life.

The disappointment came after they invited me in and I sat down to eat. As I was eating I happened to look up and sea frame hanging on the wall with these words written "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John.3: 16). I laughed because I thought how ignorant could someone be to think that God loves the world. When I thought upon how evil the world was I especially the world I knew I thought there is no way possible how God could love the world that hated him and much less love me who didn’t serve him. This was a disappointment so I went home that night and lived my drug addicted life some more not really caring what I had heard because I thought that GOD didn't care about me. It was at this time that I believe the spirit of God began to work in my heart and to convict my soul. I had a Bible in my house that I had found years back in an old abandoned apartment actually I stole it and I didn’t just walk into an abandoned apartment I broke into it while some people were in the process of moving out with the intention of burglarizing it. But I kept the bible because I liked to have books on display so people would think I was an intelligent person, but from my youth I did like to read books in general but I didn’t know it that what I actually had was the word of God. When I attempted  to read it I couldn't understand it so I skipped few Chapters and came to a verse said "Come let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow" (Isaiah 1:18) and then I skipped a few more books and came to another verse that said "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). I thought to myself if there was ever a way out of the life that I was living and weather this is it or not I have to find out.

I went the following week to another bible study in the same house and fell asleep during the meeting. What woke me was the sound the children singing ''Salvation oh Salvation" I said to myself there has to be something here worth finding out. I already knew I was a sinner and that I would go to hell not only by the witness of my life but because I had read it in the word of God and had heard in some of the preaching, but did God really hate me that much to let me go to hell without intervening? I decided I was going to ask this man who was leading the bible study what this salvation was that he was talking about and referred to in the "two roads two destinies chart". I introduced myself and then asked him personally "what does salvation mean, and what does it mean to be saved". He said to me its just like that & he pointed to the verse on the wall John 3:16. I told him "I don't understand' he said to me "what don't you understand?" I said to him "I don't understand what you mean but I tell you the truth I want to be saved and I want you to tell me how to be saved" after speaking a while he said he had to go but he said he would pray that God would help me to understand what it mean to be saved. I went home that night with some tracts in my pocket. When I arrived home I thought to myself there is no hope for me and there is no way that I can be saved, if I go to hell I know that I deserve it. But I thought maybe if I talk to God one on one and reason with him like the verse said maybe he would forgive me and save me.

So I kneeled and said "God, I know your real and want to ask you if you can please forgive me for doing all those horrible things, please forgive me for dishonoring my parents, doing drugs and being a gangster, please save me, please don't send me to hell, I don't want to go there, please have mercy on my soul". Prior to that I had opened the bible and read to the places where the tracts directed. One verse in Isaiah 53: 2,3 and John 3:16 it was at the moment of speaking with GOD that I realized that all my sorrow, pain, sins heavy load, and grief was nothing compared to what he had to go 'through on the cross. And GOD said to me "I do love you and I loved you so much that I sent my Son to save you and when he died on the cross it was for you". This is what the verse John 3:16 was talking about and if I believed on him I would be saved. My eyes were opened at that moment and it was like a heavy weight was lifted off my shoulders and I now understood what the man & the word of God were saying. For God so loved Jose that he gave his only begotten son that if Jose believes in him Jose should not perish but Jose should have everlasting life. After God saved me I got down on my knees on the same spot where I had asked for Forgiveness and thanked God for sending his Son to save me, but I told him that he shouldn't have done it because I deserved to go to hell but I thanked him that he did indeed love me. I didn't think that God could love me I thought I was beyond his reach but I wasn't and neither is anyone else who will acknowledge his or her Sin before him and come to know that great and everlasting love that God has for us. "For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly" (Rom. 5:6). When in fact you realize that you are ungodly and without strength you will come to realize also that in due time Christ died for you, for all of us, for me.

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