About Me
TJ Shirer
My name is TJ Shirer and I’m just a sinner saved by grace. Let me share my testimony with you here.
I grew up as a bad boy. My parents and I never went to church. My mother tried to get me there once when I was really young. She had a bus from a Baptist church pick up my sister and I. She gave us a couple of dollars for the offering. When the bus stopped at church, all the kids got off the bus and went to the left. My sister and I went right. We went downtown and used the offering money to play putt putt golf, but we made sure we got back to the bus in time to catch a ride home. I got into all sorts of trouble as a kid, literally playing with fire. I started drinking and smoking in my early teens and fell in with the wrong crowd. I was into drugs and stealing cars. Definitely not the kind of guy you'd expect to see in ministry.
After high school I got married and got a job working night shift in downtown Houston. I rode a motorcycle to work every night about 20 miles from my house to the bus barn, got to work, smoked dope with my boss and drank whiskey. How the buses ever made it out the gate for pull out was incredible. Not one of us was a mechanic. Every night going to work, I noticed a sign on the side of the freeway. That sign became the most important part of my ride to work. It was at the top of a hill, but there were too many words to read in one shot. I kind of made a game of it trying to read the whole thing before it would disappear from view. It took months of playing this game before I could read the whole sign. Unintentionally, I managed to memorize John 3:16, “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.” I had no clue that was in the Bible since I never read the Bible or went to church.
Around the same time, a young black man that was a cleaner on the buses showed up one night freaked out about Jesus. Me and the other guys could not stand him, and we were very mean to that man. Really mean. We would all run away from him as if he had leprosy. This went on quite a while with this guy. Then one night in the locker room, he came walking up to me. I got up to run. I had one boot on and one boot off. He said, “Don’t run TJ. It’s me Jerry.” I stopped and looked at him and noticed that he had a book in his hand. I said, “What book is that?” He said, “the Bible.” I said, “Is John 3:16 in it?” I had no idea. He said yes and he turned right to it. He got close and I read it out of the Bible. I was shocked. Then I read John 3:17, “For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” I’m telling you, I was shocked! That scripture spoke to me in a way like nothing I have ever heard. I was curious to know more, so I slowly hung out with him on the buses. He would be singing about Jesus and praying. I would be looking around hoping that no one would see me with this dude.
This went on for just a little while. Then one night he invited me to go to a Billy Graham Crusade. I didn’t know who Billy Graham was from Cooter Brown. It was on the sides of most of the buses: Billy Graham in Rice Stadium for a week-long Crusade. Jerry invited me to go the first night, but I stood him up and partied with some friends. I went to work that night and avoided Jerry until about 3:30 in the morning. He said, “I waited for you in front of the stadium.” I made some lie up and said I would go with him the next night. I got to the stadium and met Jerry. I told him I wanted to sit up as high in the top bleachers as possible. I didn’t want anyone to see me at a church function. Like someone I would know would be at a church function. Anyway, we sat and heard some old church music and Billy Graham preached. I had never in my life heard anything like that. It cut me to my very bones. I listened to every word that man had to say. Then he finished and did an altar call. People were going down on the football field. Hundreds. Then he said, “We will wait for you.” I’m telling you, he pointed right at me! I even put both my hands up towards my heart. I got up and started down the bleachers. Jerry said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m going down and accept Jesus.” I got on that field with hundreds of people. I was just walking around and a man grabbed me by my arm and said, “What are you doing down here?” I said, “I’m coming down to accept Christ.” He said, “Let’s pray.” And he and I got on our knees, and I repeated the prayer after him. I was broken knowing that my sins as well as others put Christ on that cross, tears rolling down my cheeks. We got up and he gave me a paperback book 4”x4” of the Gospel of John. I’m telling you that night I really thought that I had found the fountain of youth. I was radically changed. My eyes were opened to a new world. I was born again.
Amazing! The God that spoke the world into existence just came into my heart of hearts. I couldn’t help but tell people about Jesus. And I did, only to find out nobody wanted to hear it. I’m so glad that I wasn’t brought up in church. I could have been brought up in the Jehovah’s Witness, Morman, Muslims, Catholics, just growing up in the family tradition and really not knowing the real truth. I’m really sad there are so many cults. God has put a fire under me right now. I just want people to know the truth.
If you're reading this now, I want to encourage you to seek the Lord while he may be found. Read God’s word and see what he wants you to do my friend. I recommend you start with the Gospel of John. The majority of people are going to hell. Few there be that find Jesus and go to heaven. Matthew 7:13-14 says “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat. Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” I care where you spend eternity. Trust me. I really know the truth that can set you free. I believe that Jesus wants us to share the Good News with others! I have accepted this mission and enjoy passing out Chick tracts and telling everyone I meet that Jesus loves them and is coming back soon.