My Testimony

 

My Past 

I grew up most of my life in the church. Since I was young, my parents would always avidly make me go to church with them as a family. Because I grew up in church, I learned the necessary foundations of the Bible, like stories about Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, Joseph, David, and more. I even went to a Lutheran grade school, a Lutheran middle school, and finally, a Lutheran High School.

Even though my parents grew up in a pentecostal church, we lived in certain places like Iowa and Missouri, where we didn’t have access to some Pentecostal churches. And because they wanted at least some type of biblical influence in my schooling, I came to learn several different Christian theologies. I’ve been to Baptist churches, Lutheran churches, catholic, pentecostal, presbyterian, latter-day saints, Epicostipalian, and many more.

Even though I was baptized in a non-denominational church when I was 12 years old, I still wasn’t sold on Christianity. I did it more so to please my parents. 

Because I was going to church just about every Sunday with my family, I felt great with God. Although, the truth was I had never read the Bible. I only prayed to God when I needed something, and I was immensely involved in impurity and sexual immorality in high school.

 

Does Religion Matter?

What makes religion so tricky is that it plays a game in people’s minds. Some beliefs are either too strict and provide no grace. And some religions welcome everyone from every background, which is essential, but then claim that no matter what you do in this life, God will save you regardless of what you do. Essentially that truth is relative. The happy medium churches are hard to find. The ones that stick to what the Bible says as close as they can yet have the grace to understand that people need room to grow, transform, and become more like Christ.

16 Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

1 Timothy 4: 16

We need to love, but also, we need to use the Bible to call people higher. If we take scriptures that we only want to hear, we only get half the truth, and half the truth will never be the whole truth, which means it will always be a lie. A half-truth is a lie.

But Jesus always reminds his disciples about the kingdom. The kingdom is the people of believers, the church, and Christ’s body. Jesus displays that the church is essential. If the church is the bride (believers), how do you determine if a church has true believers?

The only way to know for sure is to read and see if they live the Bible, not read the Bible, not memorize the Scripture, but do they live the Bible? The second is to see whether or not they share the Bible. This point could mean communicating with the lost. Jesus said, “Love the Lord you God, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Living the text makes all the difference. It says to believe in God and to believe in God means to have faith in God. To have faith in something you can’t see will make you change your life. You will repent from sins or do your best to repent from sins that have held you down for most of your life. 

19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5: 19-21

Jesus doesn’t expect perfection, but he expects transformation because his spirit is inside us. To claim to be a Christian is claiming that you have God’s Spirit at work inside of you. The result is bearing fruit. A tree with no fruit gets thrown away.

How I found Christ

These are the five essentials; belief, faith, repentance, the confession that Jesus is Lord, and baptism. These necessary foundations were ideologies that I had not learned when growing up in all these different churches. I learned to be a good person and go to church, but the Bible is deeper than that.

The Bible is all about relationships and an intimate connection with the creator of the universe. It’s about transformation, bringing a taste of heaven to earth into your life, your relationships, and your community.

By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

John 13:35

Instead of living a transformed life, I lived a life of watching porn, having sex with women; cursing, stealing, and bullying people was my way of life throughout high school.

In college, I was reached out to by some people while I was playing basketball. They invited me to church and later wanted to study the Bible with me. These were the first group of people from college that I met that didn’t drink, didn’t cuss, weren’t sleeping around with one another, and were trying to live like Christ every day, not just on Sundays.

They loved me by sharing the Word of God with me in a way that I had never learned. It was no fault to my parents or the religious people I looked up to when growing up. I think I had hardened my heart a long time ago, but when I saw people of my age living out the Word, that is what clicked in my mind.

It was not about being religious. It was about being spiritual and sharing that love with as many people as possible in a caring and loving way. In this church community, I learned to believe in God, to put my faith in him, and for the first time to try and start repenting, which was extremely hard.

After years and years of watching pornography, this habit did not go away after becoming a Christian. It stayed with me year after year. In my eyes, I felt like I wasn’t changing, but in all actuality, God was transforming me year by year. He was giving me more wisdom, more strength, discernment, and power to overcome my addiction, all through his Holy Spirit.

I also met my future wife in the kingdom. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have sexual relations with a girl while I was in this relationship. We stayed pure and kept God at the center of our relationship. This relationship seemed impossible for me years before becoming a Christian, but it was natural while dating. The immense emotional and spiritual connection I built with her to this day is undeniably worth it, and I would do it all over again if I had to.

 

Now What?

So even though I believed, had faith, repented, confessed that Jesus was Lord, and got baptized, that didn’t mean that was it. Now was the part of carrying my cross daily. Now was the part of the transformation, sanctification, learning, and growing towards God. Because if I weren’t growing, my heart would become hardened, and I would become lukewarm.

Lukewarm is only a few steps from falling away, if not already there. But the path of pursuing God over myself has had many rewards. There are so many blessings, and it is too many to count in this post. The bonus of having a more profound love for my family, my friends, and understanding that in the world, it’s not all about having a 6 figure job, with a white picket fence type of home, and a retirement fund by the time you turn 65. It’s not about just getting married and having kids and traveling; even though those things are lovely, they will never fill you up.

Matthew 6:33
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Seek first the kingdom, not your job. Seek first the kingdom, not a relationship. Seek first the kingdom, not your family. Seek first the kingdom, not your school. Seek first the kingdom, not money. Seek first the kingdom, not adventure or excitement. Seek first the kingdom, not yourself. We live in a world where people’s selfishness reigns supreme. In Scripture, we see that the only way to have a piece of God is to lose a part of yourself.

What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

Matthew 16: 26

Your life is not your own. It is from God and thus belongs to Him. What is impressive about this Scripture is that he knows what you need to fulfill you because he made you. If I make a robot, I know what ingredients are required. If that robot decides that it wants something else to charge it, it won’t work because that is not how I made it.

God made us for himself; therefore, he knows what will fill us up and give us peace. That peace is through Him. And even though he made us for himself, he loves us enough to allow us to decide if we want Him. God will never force us to love Him. God will let people choose not to go to heaven and not go to Him. I can’t imagine the pain he faces because of that decision.

After years of being a Christian, I am still a work in progress. I’m not perfect, I have my pitfalls, and I have my spiritual amnesias or slumps. There are times where I seek after my past out of emotion even though I logically know it will not fulfill me. I still hurt people unintentionally from time to time with my words, tone, or demeanor.

But thank God I am saved. I am saved by his blood and by the body of Christ in which he gave me. Because of this, I hope that everyone who hears this message can seek the Word and seek after him. You only have one life to live. Why not live it with your creator, who knows and understands you better than you know yourself.