A Brief Testimony

Jesus Christ is Lord. He was a real man who lived, taught, healed, died and rose from the dead. He ascended and lives on today, seated at the right hand of God the Father. I am convinced of this. I wasn’t always, but I am now. I’m not a Christian because I like the idea of it. I couldn’t believe if I was not fully convinced. God reached out to me and drew me towards Him.

 My life is different than it used to be. I used to be wracked with anxiety, depression and self-hatred. I still experience anxiety, but not nearly to the degree that I did previously, I no longer have depressive episodes or thoughts. I do not hate myself. Before I came to Christ, I hated my life and I did not want to live it. I reached out to the God that I thought I knew out of desperation. The true, living God revealed Himself to me. He showed me who He truly was and that my life was worth living. Not because I was anything great, but because He loved me.^1 I thought I sucked and was uniquely incapable. He exposed the lies I believed and explained WHY I wasn’t good enough.^2 He gave me a way to live that had purpose and a bright future.^3 I desire, of my own sound and rational will, to live a life of love and obedience to God. I want to live out my gratitude by loving the Lord and loving the people around me.^4 My life did not get better because I had a great idea or figured something out. My situation and circumstances did not improve. I didn’t start trying harder or caring more. God witnessed my sorrow and did what I couldn’t. He changed me.^5 He transformed me into a man with hope and peace, the likes of which I had never experienced before. I don’t think people can have this kind of hope and peace without Jesus. He changed me so that I was empowered to affect change in my life by His strength. I do things that, before, I didn’t think I could. God saved me and gave me a new life because He loved me and because He wanted to.^6 I am so glad that I was rescued from despair. I could have cared less about God, but He pulled me into His arms and showed me His love: A love unlike anything else and the exact thing that I needed. The exact thing that we all need.

1: John 3: 16-21 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. 

2: Romans 3:23-26 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. 

3: Matthew 16: 24-27 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 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? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. 

4: Matthew 22: 36-40 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

5: 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

6: Romans 5:6-8 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.