This Singer ‘Went from Addiction to Redemption’ After Reading Lee Strobel’s Book
Movieguide® Contributor
“Come Jesus Come” singer Stephen McWhirter wasn’t always the strong man of the faith he is today.
In his younger years, he went through the hopeless throes of addiction before discovering who God really was through Lee Strobel’s book, The Case for Christ.
“I was raised [as] an evangelist’s son,” the singer told Matthew West on West’s podcast this week. “My dad was a…traveling evangelist, and the guy that I saw behind a pulpit and the one I saw in private were two different people. I would literally see my dad get up, preach about Jesus, but behind closed doors, I would see him physically abuse my mom, and so at a very young age, I was like, man, if God’s real, He’s not good, and I don’t want anything to do with this Jesus guy.”
“So around 11 years old, I was smoking, drinking. Marijuana by 15,” the signer continued. “It’s cocaine, pills, that kind of stuff. I’m selling drugs by the time I’m 17.”
McWhirter became addicted to crystal meth and used it every day for over six years. He developed a hate for God and believers.
“If you’d have met me then, you’d have pointed at me and said if there was ever an enemy of the cross, it’s this guy, right? And people were praying for me. I always say like that kind of prayer where you’re just like, you don’t know why, you just start crying when you’re thinking about that person and you start praying.”
“I believe for anyone hearing this, if you ever feel that way about somebody, I’m convinced that’s the Holy Spirit, like, willing you to pray for that person. There’s something powerful about you coming before the Lord and praying for that person. There’s a reason why the Lord went to Ananias for Paul. There’s a reason why just certain people He puts it on their hearts, and there’s something He wants to do in you as much as He wants to do something through you, and there were people praying for me like that.”
Then, someone gifted him The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.
“Lee was like an atheist investigative journalist, by the way, for the Chicago Tribune, and his wife became a believer, and he was like, ‘I don’t think so,’ went out to disprove it all. Ends up finding out it’s all real, gives his life to Jesus, becomes a prolific author and evangelist to the gospel to this day,” he said.
“I was like cool, whatever, right? Threw [the book] in my bedroom. Fast-forward to 3:00 in the morning. I’ve literally got drugs on the side table next to me.”
“Nobody’s playing a piano softly and quietly in the corner…It’s seemingly the most impossible place for someone to get saved, but I’m in this bed, and I’m reading this book about Jesus, and you know I just know that the Lord’s there…I know He’s in the room. I know He’s there. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“We begin to have this internal dialogue right where I’m like, ‘I want to give you my life. I want to quit all this addiction. All this darkness, all this suppression all this that I’ve known for so long.’ I mean at this point in my in my journey, I had been in addiction for over 11 years. I literally thought to myself, you will die at a young age because you can’t quit, and being okay with it…I was like, ‘Lord, I want to, [but] there’s no way I could give you my life. I want to, but I can’t imagine being somebody else. It’s impossible.'”
McWhirter believed he received a thought from the Lord: “You won’t do it, I’ll do it,” which he compares to Ephesians 2:8: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” and John 6:29: “Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
“That’s what I did,” he said. “I believed him. I took him at his word. I believed him like I believe I’m breathing air right now. Fell on my knees. Gave my life to Jesus. Went from addiction to redemption from methodic to worship leader because it’s all real bro. Every bit of it.” he told West.
“I went from addiction to redemption, from death to life because God is Real! IT’S ALL REAL!,” he shared with his Instagram followers in May.
Strobel’s book has transformed the lives of many others, including comedian Chris Distefano. Movieguide® reported:
Distefano revealed his background with faith began when he was a child as he grew up going to Catholic school. However, he never connected with the Bible and did not take his faith too seriously until recently when he read Lee Strobel’s A Case for Christ.
The book offers an extremely deep look into the historical evidence of the existence of Jesus, His miracles, His death and resurrection, and the spread of the early church. Strobel wrote the book from the perspective of a skeptic as he was not a believer until the evidence he accrued to write the book convinced him.
Distefano found the evidence compelling as well and since reading the book, has become on fire for the Lord.
McWhirter has released five albums in the last four years, and his single, “Come Jesus Come” is in the top 20 songs on Billboard’s Christian Airplay chart.
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