Testimony Tuesday: A life used by God

By Megan Deets

Jeff Reep, the director of Career Services and adjunct faculty member at Cedarville University has been sharing the story of his salvation with students for years. He started doing this in the Physical Activity and Healthy Living (PAHL) class at Cedarville that he’s been teaching for 31 years. Whether it’s PAHL or another class, Reep now speaks about his testimony in every class he teaches.

“It’s an opportunity and a privilege to have a little, tiny part in what God’s doing in students’ lives,” Reep said. 

Over the years, Reep has witnessed multiple students come into his office after hearing his testimony and pray to accept a personal relationship with the Lord. He realizes that many Cedarville students might be in the same place that he was during college. 

Reep grew up near Cleveland, Ohio, with his mom, dad and brother. His family held conservative beliefs and went to church. However, they valued hard work and good education more than they did Christianity. 

“[There was] really no time for God nor need for him,” Reep said. 

While Reep wasn’t focused on God, he was focused on basketball. As a sophomore, he played on his high school varsity team, and his coach pushed him to move forward in his basketball career. He told him that he had the potential to play in college. The game became more important to Reep than anything else in his life. 

Reep said, “Basically, basketball was my god.”

As Reep transitioned into his college years, his world still revolved around basketball. 

He chose Cedarville because he could play on the Yellow Jackets basketball team. At the end of his playing career, he was in the top 10 for both scoring and rebounding. 

Reep was interested in a girl from high school, who had connections with Cedarville. Though they never attended Cedarville at the same time, they both graduated from the university. The summer that they were 27, Reep and his wife got married. 

During his four years at Cedarville, Reep appeared to have a personal relationship with Christ.  He worked as a camp counselor for Camp Patmos on Kelly Island, served the Dayton Detention Home ministry and went to church twice a week. 

“I walked the aisle, quoted a prayer, was baptized, tithed, attended church,” Reep said. “I was just checking these boxes.” 

Despite the way he seemed to take his faith seriously, basketball continued to be Reep’s highest priority. 

“There was nothing in my lifestyle that would hinder my basketball,” Reep said. “So no one really even questioned that.”

Reep wasn’t saved until four years after he graduated college. Within these years, he also got married to a girl he knew in high school. Although they never attended Cedarville at the same time, they both graduated from the university. The summer that they were 27, Reep and his wife got married. 

As he moved forward in his dream of a basketball coaching career, Reep didn’t think he needed anything else in his spiritual life. But things began to change when he entered grad school at Delta State University. He had a Sunday school teacher who impressed a statement firmly in his mind: “Know what you believe. Know why you believe it.” He began to think seriously about his faith for the first time. 

Soon, at an event put on by Fellowship for Christian Athletes, where Reep was a small group leader, he heard something that changed his life. The speaker that night spoke on 2 Corinthians 13:5, which says, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”

Reep began to realize that he wasn’t in Christ. As he studied the book of 1 John, which has the theme of assurance in salvation, he saw that he didn’t meet any of the tests of a true believer. 

Reep examined himself and found that he wasn’t in the faith. 

Then, he became convinced that he needed to accept Jesus over and over again. He would say a salvation prayer and be baptized multiple times to make himself feel better.

“I was just this constant up and down,” Reep said. 

This lasted until one Saturday night when Reep realized that he needed Jesus for salvation. From then on, his heart was transformed by God’s grace.

“However much I saw my need for him that night pales in comparison to how I see my need for him now,” Reep said. 

Reep was scared to tell his wife, friends and colleagues about his newfound relationship with Christ. Everyone believed he was saved; they had no idea that he had truly been far from God the whole time they had known him. 

But a week later, Reep made a public profession of faith and was baptized. After this, Reep realized his wife had lived out 1 Peter 3:1b: “So that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.”

Even though his wife was unaware of Reep’s heart, she lived in a way that showed him that he was missing something in his faith. He found what he didn’t have in the personal relationship of a heart surrendered to Christ. 

Although the Lord had changed his heart during his time at Delta State University, Reep was still called and gifted in the game of basketball. Reep had begun his basketball coaching career coaching junior varsity at Cedarville. After this, he coached at several prominent universities, starting at Delta State, a Division II school. 

Four years later, he moved to coaching at Stetson University. From there, Reep took a position as the associate head coach at New Mexico State University for 11 years. During his time there, New Mexico State made it to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA men’s tournament. 

However, because of the demands of coaching, Reep wasn’t able to spend much time at home. One July while he was coaching, he was only home for two nights of the month. Reep and his wife decided to move back to Ohio, where they had grown up, and he’s thankful for the time with his family that this move provided. 

In 1995, Reep began working for Cedarville again as the head basketball coach. He started in the Career Services Department five years later, climbing up the ranks from assistant to associate to director. He loved being a part of investing in the lives of Cedarville students through his work as Career Services director, a position he is retiring from this year. 

Reep teaches six classes throughout the school year as a professor in multiple departments including engineering and business. He will continue at Cedarville as a part-time faculty member in the School of Allied Health this next fall, sharing his testimony with all of his classes out of a desire for them to examine their own hearts before the Lord. 

Reep is still learning how to become more like Christ. Recently, he has been thinking about how important it is for the desire of our hearts to be God and not other things. 

“We do whatever we desire to do,” Reep said. “We sin because we desire to sin. We never sin out of duty: ‘Oh man, I’ve gotta go sin today.’ We sin because we want to sin and because I desire that more than I desire him.” 

As Reep thinks back on his life, he points back to God in all things. Any influence that he had on the lives of students through sharing his testimony was not because of him but because of God.

“I know I’m not the only one to go through Cedarville and not know the Lord,” Reep said. “There’s been several times students have come in and said, ‘I think I’m where you were at’, as far as doing all this stuff, knowing about God but not knowing him.”

Megan Deets is a freshman Professional Writing and Information Design student. Some of the things that she loves are new notebooks, fresh fruit and musicals.