My Story

My parents are Christ followers, so I was raised going to church and to Sunday school, memorizing hymns and Bible verses, such as Romans 3:23, Romans 5:8, and Romans 6:23. The Bible was always taught to me as the truth, and I never knew anything different. When I was in first grade, all of this started making sense to me, and I realized that I needed Jesus to be my Savior. Romans 10:9-10 says,

• “That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”

I very clearly remember the day I walked down the aisle at church and how I prayed right there and asked Jesus to forgive my sins and come into my life and be my Savior. I also remember talking with my dad about it the night before, but for some reason I thought that I actually had to be at church when I did it. I have since learned that you can pray and ask Jesus into your heart at any time and any place. Shortly thereafter, I was baptized, and I understood that this was to be an outward sign of the change that had happened inside my heart. In Matthew 28, after Jesus was raised from the dead, he came and told his disciples,

• “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

Since I was so young at the time, I don’t specifically remember my life “before” Christ. I was always a good kid, a people pleaser I guess you could say, and I never wanted to get in trouble or make my parents upset. Fortunately, most of my life the choices I’ve made have been guided by what is pleasing to God and I’ve managed to stay out of a lot of trouble. However, it is easy to just roll through life knowing that there is a God who made you and loves you, but to fail to ACT on that truth and to live your life in a way that is different and shows evidence of this change in your heart. Paul says in Romans 12:1-2,

• “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Figuring out what it means to “live for Christ” has been an ongoing challenge for me. Paul says in Philippians 2:12-13,

• “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

I’m still not sure exactly what it means to “work out your salvation.” The New Living Translation says, “Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.” What this says to me is, work hard to make your life count, to avoid temptation, to deny your own pleasures and desires in order to make God more famous, so that everyone you encounter in life will know it is He who deserves all the credit.

• “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)