Skip to main content

Gregory Dickow: 'If God Can Change Me...'

Share This article

CBN.com Since the time he was a young boy, Gregory Dickow felt like he was missing something.

“I was lonely from the time I can remember. Love was a foreign word to us. Nobody ever said, ‘I love you.’”

He began a search for purpose in life after a popular high school friend unexpectedly committed suicide.

Gregory says, “It just shocked me. It woke me up, and I said to myself, ‘Man, I don’t have a girlfriend. I’m not on the baseball team. I’m not popular. I’m not good looking. I don’t have anything that he had going for him, and he killed himself. What’s going to stop me from doing the same thing?’ That began a search in my heart for a reason to live. I began a search to fill the emptiness that was awakened inside of me.”

He continues, “Every time I did something, whether it was getting drunk or getting high, it was just never enough.  I would leave school after 4th hour period, come home for lunch period, get drunk and go back to school completely intoxicated. Every day I would get with my friends after school. We would get high [with] marijuana sometimes harder drugs cocaine and acid.”

Gregory worked alongside a Christian at a local restaurant.

“But I noticed he wasn’t doing the things we were doing. He wasn’t talking like we were talking. He wasn’t pursing the things we were pursing, but he had this peace. He had this calm, and he was cool.”

His friend invited Gregory to a home Bible study.

“For the first time in my life, I felt peace. I felt love,” he remembers. “They weren’t trying to beat me up because of my lifestyle.   I had met people that wanted to show me the love of God in an unconditional way.  He said, ‘Look at this scripture,’ and he showed me the first scripture I ever saw in the Bible, OPEN VERSE IN BIBLE (nlt) : ‘If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.’

“I knew in my heart I was lost. I was without God. I was empty, and I knew I was a sinner. [It was said,] ‘If you let Jesus into your life, He’ll change you on the inside.’ All the sudden, I felt this peace when he said it, and then I felt this war inside of me. It was a spiritual war that was going on for my future,  my destiny and my eternity.”

Gregory prayed with the man that God would forgive his sins. Before leaving, a woman gave him a Bible.

“That moment Jesus became my Savior, love penetrated my heart for the first time. That moment I actually believed I was forgiven of my sins. I actually believed God loved me.”

Gregory knew something had changed, but continued getting drunk with friends.

“I would come home after getting drunk and getting high, and I would open that Bible up. I would just keep reading. My desires began to change. I remember the day the last time that I got drunk. I took the last bottle of beer that I was drinking, and I poured it on the front lawn of my parents’ house late at night. I said, ‘This is the last time I’m going to drink alcohol ever again.’”

Friends and family began to see a change in Gregory. He shared his new faith with anyone who would listen.

“I just knew this. I said, ‘Man, if God can change me, He can change anybody.’ So I just began to witness to the people around me, and people began to see the change. I realized my value wasn’t determined by what I looked like, what I knew or what I had accomplished. My value was determined by the fact that God paid for me with the blood of His Son. That elevated my view of myself when I realized He loves me enough to send His son to die for me. Wow! That changed the way I looked at myself forever.

“As I’ve studied the Word of God, I’ve found that God is a ‘Yes God.’ He’s a positive God that says yes to His promises. God is love. The Bible is a love letter, and love is what changes us. I once was unloved; now I know the love of Jesus. I want to bring this to other people.”

Gregory found his calling teaching and preaching about the love of God that changed his life so dramatically. His book, The Power to Change Today, tells the story of how God’s love made him into a new man.

“It comes from the real love of God demonstrated through Jesus that penetrates the hardest hearts like me, the worst criminals, the worst sinners -- which all of us were.  God’s love broke through and changed me.”

Share This article

About The Author

Rob Hull
Rob
Hull

Rob Hull has been writing, shooting and producing stories for CBN since 2008. His love of sharing redemptive, Christ centered stories began with video productions at his local church in Bellingham Washington before moving to Nashville to join the CBN staff. He loves the process of creating emotionally moving images that help tell the story of God’s love for people.