I was very blessed to be born into a loving Christian family who always taught me the wonderful truths of the gospel. I was also very blessed to be brought up in the Beeston Free church family going to all the kids groups. They were all fantastic at having the gospel message at the centre of them and so I always knew that Jesus had died on the cross to save my sins but yet I never really bothered to act on it. I always got taught at Sunday school that coming to church didn’t make you a Christian yet somehow I never really related that to me. I would always have called myself a Christian and sitting in Sunday school I may have appeared like one on the outside – I always knew the answers and I never doubted that any of it was true, but I suppose that was all Jesus meant to me – a nice story that we could read before bed and hear about on Sundays.
It was before I started the youth group when I was in Discoverers that I realised that actually God needed to mean more to me than just this friendly nice story. There was a small amount of time when I’d just started secondary school when if someone asked me if I was a Christian my answer would be, well I believe the bible is true and I go to church but I don’t want to call myself a Christian.
It was when I started the youth group that God really put these things on my heart. We did some much deeper bible study and that really helped me to start taking God much more seriously. We did a bible study one evening on Mark 13 and we got to the section about the day and hour unknown. We were talking about whether or not we would be ready for Jesus’s return. I distinctly remember one of the leaders looking up and saying, just because Jesus made these promises 2000 years ago does it mean they are old and outdated? Of course not, it just means that we are 2000 years nearer to it happening. Something just clicked that night and I realised that even though Jesus had done everything for me and it was all there waiting I hadn’t yet accepted it. I had gradually realised that I was a sinner but had never really thought about asking for forgiveness and so that night I gave my life to Christ. God had finally made me realise that He was coming back again and as a judge and when He did I wasn’t ready.
I had learnt that God gave the ultimate sacrifice – His one and only son. He had given up everything, taken all my sin onto Him. I didn’t have to do anything. It was all down to God and all by what He had done. I deserve death but I have a merciful and completely loving heavenly father who is compassionate to me and I wanted to have a personal relationship with Him.
I am very blessed to be able to go to contagious (a Christian camp) every year where we get a week of solid bible teaching which is so helpful, encouraging and uplifting. Two years ago (well, 4 now...) we had a talk on the lullabies of this world and just how easy as a young Christian it is to give up on it all and to turn our backs on God and to go back to a worldly and sinful way of living. God really spoke to me in this talk and I was very moved by it. It was then that I decided that this is my new life now in Christ and I was not going to let myself slip away from it. I wanted to make a commitment to God and wanted to show everyone else my commitment to God and my love for Jesus - I love Jesus so much and am striving in my life to serve him but I am still a sinner and still regularly muck up. This is when I decided I wanted to get baptised.
Unfortunately I had just got on crutches at that time and so decided it would make sense just to wait the few weeks until I was off them... only that never really happened. Although I do not know when I will be pain free and walking and how long that will be God still continually blesses me so, so, SO much and one thing I can be certain of is that one day I will be dancing with my loving saviour pain free in heaven forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment