Hello friend! I assume you’ve entered this page because from you heart, you cry out for some help, hope and answer’s for your questions or struggles. I don’t know what difficulties you’re facing, what may be causing you hurt, pain, guilt or shame, what you’re searching for. Maybe you’re just curious about God, Jesus Christ and the Bible. But, whatever the reason, you can know that God loves you and He has a plan for your life. You didn’t get on this site by accident. Please read on as I tell you my story, about my friend who rescued me and changed my life.

My story begins in 1969. I stepped onto a stage for the first time and played crankin’ rock and roll music. It changed my life forever. Being in a band was my ticket to be popular, be somebody, be accepted by my peers and get girls. My dream was to become a big shot rock and roll star.

Have you ever wanted to be accepted and loved? God will love and accept you if you let Him!

At age 17, friends introduced me to drugs and alcohol. It seemed fun and harmless. I never imagined these substances I could control would one day take control of my life and nearly destroy me.

Do you have an addiction, some attitude or bad habit that controls you and you long to be free from it? Read on…

There’s hope for you!

I moved to Hollywood, California in 1975 to pursue my dream. My search for the big break became a big disappointment. I was discouraged, depressed, frustrated. Relief was spelled d-r-u-g-s and a-l-c-o-h-o-l. A friend invited me to church to hear about God. When the pastor spoke, it was as if he knew my life and was speaking right to me. As I look back now, I can see God was using him to reach out to me and speak to my heart. He said having a relationship with Jesus Christ would change my life, bring me hope, inner joy and peace. It sounded good. I sensed in my heart I needed that relationship. But, another voice spoke to my heart saying, “You don’t need God right now, you want to be a rock star, you can wait until later. I listened to the second voice and said ‘no’ to God, ‘no’ to following Jesus Christ and ‘yes’ to sex, drugs and rock and roll. It’s the worst decision I ever made.

In 1979, I signed a major record deal with Canadian/American recording artists, TORONTO. We became one of Canada’s hottest acts. Our songs played on the radio. We were awarded gold and platinum record awards for record sales excellence. Autograph sessions, radio interviews, our faces displayed in the newspapers and record store windows, riding in limousines and tour buses were part of our everyday life. We performed before as many as 40,000 screaming fans in every major city and concert hall across Canada. I was living out my childhood dream as a rock star!

You would have thought I was happy! Inside, where no one could see, I was unhappy, lonely, empty inside. Something was missing, like I had a hole in my heart. I tried to fill it with my excessive use of drugs and alcohol. I snorted or smoked cocaine, speed, uppers, downers, mixing them with hard liquor. Getting high made me feel normal, helped me face my fears and escape my problems… for a little while. I’d usually pass out at night, only to wake up and still have the
same problems, the same hole in my heart. Drugs and alcohol only messed me up and never brought me the answers I was looking for.

Is your life messed up because of drugs and alcohol? There’s hope and help for you. Read on…

I wanted to experience real, true love. I figured I’d find love by having sex. Wrong! What I eventually ended up with after few short moments of pleasure with women I never had a real relationship with, was a cold, untrusting, uncaring heart. Women became someone for me to use and abuse for my own selfish pleasure. I never gave love, only took sex. Once, I got a girl pregnant. She had an abortion. I thought it was the right thing to do, but it wasn’t. I realized I’d helped kill an innocent baby. Because I was selfish, I didn’t value life and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a child from a woman I didn’t even care about. I should have assumed the responsibility for my actions. Never once did I find real, honest, true love by having sex outside of a marriage relationship.

With God in my life, I am no longer lonely and I’m experiencing His love for me. His love is real and forever! I have a marriage where Christ is at the center. It’s awesome having God in your marriage. He shows you how to love each other and then helps you. He also helps you love others the way He desires, even those who are hard to love. The real, true, honest, unconditional love I was looking for I found in Jesus Christ.

Are you looking for love? Maybe you’re looking in all the wrong places with the wrong people? You can experience the greatest love there is and it never ends! Keep reading….

My careless, reckless lifestyle put me on a crash course with death. I had a bad attitude about life. I was wasting away my life. Suicidal thoughts had crossed my mind. My dream was becoming a nightmare. My career as a rock star ended 4 short years after it began. I went from rock star to rock bottom. As a has-been rocker I began shacking up with a woman. We shared the partying lifestyle. Our relationship blew up one night into a terrible fight. I wanted to hit her, but ran out the door, jumped into my car, drove 25 miles blind drunk and passed out in my car. The next day reality hit me. Things looked hopeless. I was miserable and messed up more than ever. If I didn’t get some help, I’d end up a dead man.

Friends and family told me they were praying for me. Big deal. They said I’d never find true happiness and contentment without a relationship with Jesus Christ. Back in 1975, I said ‘no’ to God, but now I was having second thoughts.

Ever been there? Someone has told you God loves you, he can help you, and you need a relationship with Jesus Christ?

Your reading this isn’t an accident. God is reaching out to you right now!

In 1988, my live-in girlfriend and I decided to attend a meeting and listen to preacher named Billy Graham. He said God loved me and wanted a personal relationship with me. The problem was… I was separated from God because of my sin. I wasn’t living for God. God wanted to be first in my life. My God was sex, drugs, alcohol, success, being famous and running my own life. My life was all about me, doing things my way and nobody told me what to do. I had a bad attitude… period! My way never worked for me. I didn’t really know God or have a relationship with Him. Again, I heard that Jesus could meet all my needs. Jesus could forgive my sin and the bad things I’d done, fill the hole in my heart I couldn’t fill, give me peace, joy and a new start. I didn’t have a relationship with God. I was listening now and wanted God in my life. That night in 1988, my live in girlfriend Jeri and I gave our hearts and lives away to Jesus Christ. We became followers of Jesus Christ. I got a new start in life. It’s the best decision I ever made!!

Have you made that decision? Do you have the personal relationship you were created to have with God through His Son Jesus Christ?

It’s a relationship you don’t have, God wants you to have, and you can have, but it’s your choice.

Let me explain….

In the beginning of time, God created a perfect world for man and woman to live in. He created the first humans named Adam and Eve. There was no evil, sickness, pain, heartache or bad stuff in the world. It was perfect. Adam and Eve had a perfect relationship with the God who created the universe. Their life was full of happiness, prosperity and everything was good.

God gave Adam and Eve a free will to make decisions. He tested their love for Him. He put a tree with fruit in a garden named Eden. He told them they could have anything and do anything, but couldn’t eat the fruit off the tree named ‘Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil’. If they did, God said they would die.

The devil showed up. He deceived them. He told them God was lying and nothing bad would happen if they ate the fruit. He got them to believe if they ate the fruit, they would be like God. They fell for his lie, disobeyed God and ate the fruit. The Bible says when they disobeyed, they committed a sin. They became sinners. The result was man became separated from God. Fear, sickness, agony, pain, evil, everything destructive, negative and evil entered the whole world. Death and sin came to the human race.

What is sin? Sin is disobeying God, not living for God, breaking the 10 commandments, doing your own thing and not God’s thing, being the boss of your life, rejecting God and His love. That was me. Nobody told me what to do. I made my own decisions. I didn’t obey God. I didn’t have a relationship with God. I made many foolish, unhealthy, wrong decisions on my own. I paid a price for it. Because of my sin, I messed up, hurt people, suffered pain, made bad decisions, got hooked on drugs and alcohol, cheated, lied, used and abused women for my own selfish pleasure. Everything bad comes from sin.

We all have sin in our hearts.

Just like you inherit your skin and hair color, personality traits, temperament from your parents and grandparents, we’ve all inherited from Adam, the father of the human race, the desire to do our own thing, make our own decisions and not live for God. We’re called sinners and we sin. God hates sin.

We’re all guilty of sin. No one is innocent..

The Bible says, “All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glorious standards for living.” Have you ever done things like told a white lie, stolen, cheated, gotten angry, been jealous, swore, been unkind? That’s sin. It hurts people. Your sin separates you from God.

The Bible says, “Your sins separate you from God.”

Truth is friend… your sin separates YOU from God!

Because of sin, there’s a wall up between you and God. You can’t get to God. Your heart is dirty because of your sin. God can’t accept you because of your sin dirty heart. The price to pay for your sin is to face the wrath of God. God will judge you when you die. If that wall is still up and you don’t know Him, He will not accept you into heaven when you die. You will go to a horrible place of torment named Hell, forever! God didn’t create hell for you. He provided a way of escape.

The Bible says, “The price to pay for sin is death.”

Because Adam messed up and sinned, all of us have dirty hearts at birth. We all must pay the price. No exceptions. It sounds pretty hopeless and terrible doesn’t it. Death isn’t the end of our existence. We will all live forever. We’ll live in a paradise named heaven with God, or because of our sin… in the terrible, horrendous, painful fires of hell separated from God forever.

Do you know where you’ll spend eternity? If not, you can choose where at the end of this story.

It doesn’t seem fair that because one guy named Adam messed up, we have to pay the price. I have great news… there’s hope for you! You can be rescued. If you’re heart is washed clean, your sins are forgiven… you’ll be made acceptable to God.

How can someone get their heart washed clean and made acceptable by God?

God loves His creation. He loves us all. He doesn’t want anyone to go to hell. He wants everyone including you, to know Him and go to heaven when you die. His Son Jesus Christ came to rescue the world. God took all our sin, our sickness, all the bad things we’ve done and put it on Jesus. Then, Jesus died a horrible death on the cross and paid the price for your sin and mine. He died in your place. He shed His blood for you.

If anyone believes in Jesus, believes He is who He says He is, believes what He did is true, admits to God they’re a sinner, asks His forgiveness and asks Jesus to come into their heart and life, they will be rescued from God’s wrath, judgment and hell!

His shed blood washes their heart clean. God sees their heart has been cleaned by the blood of Jesus. The wall comes down between them and God. God accepts them into His family. Sounds pretty easy, right? Too easy? You don’t have to do anything, but believe in Jesus Christ and then you become one of His followers.

God says in His book the Bible, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.”

When you believe, it means you will ‘trust in’, ‘rely upon’, ‘put you total confidence in’ Jesus Christ as your only hope. You follow Him and grow in your relationship with each other.

Then you must ‘repent’ of your sins. You change the direction you’re going. You change the way your living. Instead of living your way, you live God’s way as He teaches in His book the Bible.
God knows you can’t do it alone. God will help you

God’s book says there’s a relationship you were created to have. It says you, “were created by Him and for Him.” God created you to have an intimate, personal relationship with Him. But, it’s a relationship you don’t have because of your sin. Because you’re running your own life, you’re separated from God. You won’t experience all God has for your life, a relationship with Him or will you spend forever in heaven when you die.
You can change that right now. You can begin most important relationship you’ll ever have. It’s a relationship with the God of the universe who created you and me for that forever relationship.

John 3:16 in God’s book says, “God so love the world that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but have eternal life.”

Are you ready for this relationship? You’ll be joining the largest family in the world, the family of God. Every bad, sinful, wrong thing you’ve ever done will be erased and forgotten by God.

It will be a new beginning for you, born again only spiritually into the family of God!

You will become a follower of Jesus Christ. God will become your heavenly Father. He will come into your heart and life forever. God will help you live the way He wants you to live. As you grow in this relationship, God will begin to make you a new person. He’ll help you forget your past mistakes or regrets. He can heal a broken heart. He will always be there for you.

Life isn’t perfect.

God will be there for you in the good times and the bad. He will be there to comfort you, help you, guide you, bless you, fix your problems, struggles and difficulties or help you get through them.

Nothing is impossible with God.

He will walk through all of life with you. It doesn’t matter what you think about yourself. God loves you and will accept you just the way you are. That’s incredible love. Then, as you grow in your relationship with God, He will change you to become the person He designed you to be.

Don’t wait any longer! You may never get another chance!
Make sure if you die today, you’re going to heaven to be with God forever.

Begin the greatest relationship you’ll ever have! Put your trust in Him and say this prayer:

God, I’ve been running my own life. I don’t know you. I now know I was made to have a relationship with you. I’ve been living for myself. I’m sorry for that self-rule you call sin.

I admit I’m a sinner. I believe Your Son Jesus Christ paid my death penalty when He died on the cross. Right now, I ask you to forgive me. Help me to turn from living my life my way to living life your way.

I’m putting my trust in Jesus to wash my dirty heart clean, so I can have a relationship with you and go to heaven when I die. Jesus, come into my heart and life. Help me to follow you all the days of my life. I’m yours forever! Thank you for rescuing me and loving me. Amen

CONGRATULATIONS! Now tell someone. Join a Christian church that teaches the whole Bible and tell the pastor about your decision.

For more information contact me at mail@nickcostello.org and let me know of your decision. I will send you some materials to help you begin your new life with God. Also contact the Billy Graham Association at help@bgea.org for more help. God bless you!

Updated August 21, 2007