As I've mentioned, each day this week I'll be featuring a new theme for my blog. Today's is called, "Word Wednesday." What does that mean? Well, let me explain.
My vision for "Word Wednesday" is that I can encourage you in your Christian faith. It may be a brief testimony of what's going on in my life, it may be a brief description of what I've been reading in The Word (The Bible), it may be song lyrics that have been encouraging to me, you just never know what it may be. Regardless of what format it takes, I hope that it encourages you as you strive to live more and more like Jesus.
Today I'm going to give a little history of me, or in churchy words, "my testimony." I figured what better way to start this feature than to let you know a little about me and my faith. God saved me when I was in the 8th grade. I grew up believing I was a Christian. I went to church and I believed in Jesus. I was a good kid, and I tried not to do anything wrong. However, one night at a Christian concert, God opened my eyes. I can't tell you whose concert it was (I never listened to him before or after). All I can tell you is that it seemed as though God was using the speaker to speak directly to me, and no one else was in the audience. While the band took a break, a guest speaker came out and began telling the audience what it meant to follow Jesus. I don't know exactly what he said, but what I do remember was him saying that it doesn't matter if you're a good kid, or you go to church, or you believe in God ("You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe - - and shudder!" (James 2:19, ESV)) (all of the reasons I had been using for calling myself a Christian). What matters is that you have a real relationship with Jesus. When he finished, I prayed that God would take over my life, forgive me of my sins, save me, and give me a new life with a relationship with Him. Through His grace, He did just that ("For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9, ESV).
I've since learned a lot more about what it means to follow Jesus. At the time, I believed that saying that prayer was enough. It's not. Being a true Christian means living sold-out to Jesus! It means being fully surrendered to His will for your life and whatever He has for you (whether it is what you would prefer or not). "And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it" (Mark 8:34-35, ESV). Here's the awesome part though, the closer you get to God, the more likely it is that what you want and what He wants will be the same thing!
Am I perfect? Far from it. Do I show Christ to others like I should? No. Do I still sin? Yes. However, it is my desire to sin less and less and become more and more like Jesus.
There's a lot more that I could say, and I'll be sharing more throughout "Word Wednesdays." However, if you ever have ANY questions about what it means to be a Christian, the Bible, God, etc., please let me know. Leave a comment or send me an e-mail (there's a contact form on the right side of the page). I may not know the answer (I don't claim to be a Bible scholar), but I can definitely get you in contact with someone who does.
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