"Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me I once was lost but now am found was blind but now I see"
I was born into a great Christian home. I
have been blessed with a mother and father that I am sure read me Bible verses
when I was still even inside of my mother’s womb. They are great parents, and
we have always attended Briarwood church on Sundays and Wednesdays. I have
grown up in a Christian school my entire life, and since elementary school I
have had Bible classes where we memorize Scripture and learn about it. I have
always been involved with the youth group and have been considered by everyone
in my Christian school to be ‘the good kid.’
I attended a church weekend conference
right before school started my freshman year. I was a leader in the youth
group, and I had won the Spiritual Leadership Award at the end of 8th
grade at school. God revealed himself to me over that weekend. I had a lot of
religion. That picture has been painted in the previous sentences. I was a
‘good kid’. I believed in God and Jesus because every influence in my life told
me it was fact. In reality, I think I really did ‘believe’ in them (but even
the demons ‘believe’ and shudder), but I did not have a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ. I did not intimately know and love him as my only Savior and
hope. He was not the one in control of my life, I was. I surrendered my life to
Christ because I wanted him to be the one driving the car of my life, not me. Timothy
Keller says in his book The Reason For God, “as a child the plausibility
of a faith can rest on the authority of others, but when we reach adulthood
there is a need for personal, firsthand experience as well.” I did not have
personal deep commitment of my own, and I realized the religion I had did not
even come to close to comparing to Jesus Christ and his gospel. I was doing the
right thing because I was suppose to, because that was where I found my
identity, and because that is what everyone around me expected and even honored.
So if asked to point to one moment where I believe God really started working
in me that would be it.
It would be great to be able to say, “and
then I became the perfect Christian and have been flourishing doing everything
right to make a difference for the Lord ever since- the end.” However, that
would be nothing but a lie. Jesus is so good. He is so beautiful and I have no
idea why he shows me the grace he does, it amazes me every day of my life. I am
messed up in so many ways. I have to continually struggle over the fact that I truly
am unable to do anything good on my own. I have to have Jesus. I wake up in the
mornings and breathe every breath because my creator woke me up and allows me
to keep breathing. Without my sole motive being to honor Christ, even the good
things I do become legalistic and centered around me. In all different areas of
life, I let sin and the ways of this world come out of me not the love of
Christ. I have doubts I have to struggle with even as I write this. I do not
have it all figured out in any way. There is so much I claim to believe that I
am basing my whole life off of, but that I do not really know or understand. God
is continually sanctifying me and bringing me closer to Him in spite of my
natural rebellion and inadequacy. I am inadequate, and I don’t deserve him at
all. Praise God though for Jesus!! So my testimony is still going on as long as
I continue to breathe because God’s work in me has a very long way to go. I am
his child, and I have the life changing privilege to call out to my Abba. So I
will end with “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live,
but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by
faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:20)
